Smile - Google cams return

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been mapped by Google. Photo / Google

Camera-equipped Street View car spotted in central Auckland streets.

The Google Street View car has been spotted photographing downtown Auckland this week - giving city dwellers the opportunity to be immortalised on the spot - at least until the next time the panoramic online map is updated.

An SUV with a ball-shaped series of cameras attached to its roof was seen in Quay St about 2pm on Tuesday, and a Google spokesman confirmed Auckland's streets were being photographed - although he did not divulge where the car would head to next.

"While we don't have exact details to share about schedules or timelines, we're constantly working to update our Street View imagery to keep our maps up to date," the spokesman said.

Street View was launched in the US in May 2007 as "several" computers packed into the back of an SUV with some lasers, a camera and a GPS device stuck to the top.

The service came to New Zealand about 2008.

Street View covers more than eight million kilometres of road across the world. Quay St was last mapped in May 2014.

The newest Street View car has 15 lenses taking 360-degree photos, motion sensors, lasers, and a small computer.

Below, a Street View car - smaller vehicles are brought in to cover tricky locations. Photo / Google

But it's not just cars that are used - a Street View tricycle is used to capture places that can't be accessed by cars, such as the University of San Diego campus, while the makeshift Street View snowmobile has mapped images of Whistler skifield in Canada and the Street View trolley allows people to check out some of their favourite art galleries such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Though people may not always be keen to be immortalised online, in 2008 Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff said she was encouraged by the company's "proactive approach" to protecting people's privacy through face blurring and an image-removal process.

"If you are concerned about an image on Street View, you can request it be removed using the 'report a problem' function on the bottom-right corner of the screen when looking at the Street View image."

Since then, there have been no complaints to the commissioner about Street View.

But in May 2010, concerns were raised about Google cars deliberately collecting Wi-Fi information from internet users - including New Zealanders.

An inquiry by the Privacy Commissioner into the data collection found that though Google's reasons for collecting the data were legitimate, New Zealanders had not been notified about the collection, making it unfair and in breach of the Privacy Act.

In November 2012 Google confirmed the data had been destroyed.