A spate of burglaries in a Buckinghamshire village had already put residents on the alert for any suspicious vehicles. So when the Google Street View car trundled towards Broughton with a 360-degree camera on its roof, villagers sprang into action. Forming a human chain to stop it, they harangued the driver about the “invasion of privacy”, adding that the images that Google planned to put online could be used by burglars.

As police made their way to the stand-off, the Google car yielded to the villagers. For now, Broughton remains off the internet search engine’s mapping service.

It was Paul Jacobs who provided the first line of resistance. “I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” he said. “My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.”

He then ran round the village knocking on doors to rouse fellow residents. While the police were called, the villagers stood in the road, not allowing the car to pass. The driver eventually did a U-turn and left.

Mr Jacobs said: “This is an affluent area. We’ve already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it’s an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police.”

Google Street View, which was introduced in Britain last month, gives 360-degree views of the biggest cities, allowing people to take virtual tours from their computers or mobile phones. The company’s camera-equipped cars, which take the photographs for Street View, aim to cover as much of Britain as possible.

Readers of Times Online were asked recently where they had spotted the Street View car, and in the past couple of weeks people have seen them in Winchester, Preston, Chelmsford and Ipswich.

It is thought that the Google car that tried to enter Broughton had come from photographing roads in near by Milton Keynes. Google said that its car had been using public roads and was not breaking the law. A spokesman said: “We provide an easy way to request removal of imagery. Most requests are processed within hours.” Pictures removed include that of a man leaving a sex shop.

Privacy International, a pressure group, has begun legal action against the company in an effort to bring down the mapping service.

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