France urges Google to pull photos after copter escape

paris — France has asked Google to remove photos of prisons from the internet, including one from which a notorious criminal known as “the jailbreak king” escaped by helicopter this year.

Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said she had written to the internet search engine to request the removal of sensitive photos, but no action had been taken.

“It’s not normal that photos of security buildings such as our prisons are out there on the internet,” Belloubet said in an interview on RTL radio station.

“I’ve written to Google asking for action to remove (photos of) these penitentiary sites but nothing has happened so far,” she said. “I may have to ask to meet the people I wrote to.” A Google spokesman said applications such as Google Maps and Google Earth drew on images from external sources. “We have given our suppliers a list of sensitive locations and asked them to take the necessary steps as soon as possible to conform with the law,” said the spokesman, adding that the list also included nuclear plants and army bases.

The minister was discussing the case of Redoine Faid, whose escape in July from the open courtyard of a jail complex south of Paris drew attention to the absence of anti-helicopter nets.

Faid was recaptured last week, three months after accomplices landed a hijacked helicopter in the yard of Reau prison, hacked their way into an adjacent visitor room with power-grinders to free him, and flew back out.—