Google has apologised after its Street View photo mapping service showed a frontal view of a naked child on a family day out.
Images of the blond boy, aged four or five, went live on Thursday in an update for the service.
They pictured him with his trousers down after going to the toilet on Wimbledon Common, South-West London.
The photos, showing the child’s mother or nanny helping him dress and a man looking on, have sparked fears that paedophiles will have a new way to search for photos or targets online.
Google had blurred the child’s face but not the registration plate of the family’s car, making it possible to trace their address.
The photos were removed soon after Google was alerted yesterday.
But they are further ammunition for critics of Street View, branded a ‘burglar’s charter’ when it launched last year.
The service caused controversy then with images of a naked toddler and people leaving sex shops or vomiting in public.
Privacy campaigners slammed Google yesterday. Alex Deane, of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘Where there’s one example like this, there will be many others.’
A Google spokesman said: ‘We apologise for any inadvertent concern this may have caused.’
He said there were online tools so users could report inappropriate images immediately.