Google is about to start taking photographs of streets and locations in Croatia for its service Google Maps Street View which enables a virtual search of locations and orientation with the help of panoramic pictures taken in streets, the Google office in Zagreb said last Thursday.

Streets and locations will be filmed in the coming weeks throughout the country by people in cars and on bicycles bearing the Google sign.

Street View is part of the Google Maps service, which is available in more than 30 countries. The service makes it possible, for example, to see a restaurant before making a booking, to make a travel plan, find a location for a meeting and many other things.

The collected photographs will be processed and stitched together, and the process will last several months, Google said.

For reasons of privacy and security, Google will blur the faces of people and car registration plates that happen to be on the photographs. Once the Street View service is available, it will be possible to request the removal of a photograph.