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Mr Hanke said: "For me it is a really simple idea - Street View allows you to do something from your desktop that you used to have to get in your car and drive around to do. It is taking people off the road, burning less fuel and saving people time. It is about giving people powerful information so that they can make better choices."

For instance, it relieved the anxiety of booking the right hotel in the right location, he said. "It is almost like Star Trek where in an ideal world you would just go to the transporter room and transport yourself there, materialise out of the ether, walk around with you tricorder/camera, investigate the place and then beam back and tell your wife, it's perfect and then book it."

Mr Hanke has previously had to fend off controversy about the security implications of the "overhead" imagery of Google Maps. Terrorists in Mumbai used mapping programs to help plot their attacks. Google also replaced images of a British base in Iraq after military objections. A Republican legislator in California has drafted a bill calling for Google to blur out all schools, places of worship, government buildings and medical facilities because of the security risk.

Mr Hanke said he expected the Street View controversy to die down in the UK once people understood the technology and the limitations of the service better. He pointed out that the Street View images will only be updated at most once a year and probably once every two years.

"It is not real time, you can see that there is a red vehicle in front of a house on a certain day. But can you check on Street View to see if there is anyone at home? No, because it is one image taken at a certain point in time. It does not tell you anything about whether the car is there now or whether it is there every day."

Street View began as a side project for Google co-founder Larry Page. In the early years of Google, before it became a public company in 2004, he investigated how to stitch together photos taken from a moving car and asked Google engineers to come up with systems to put the pictures together and create a mapping service.

Mr Hanke, who was co-founder and CEO of Keyhole, a global mapping company that was acquired by Google in 2004 and which became Google Earth, oversaw the introduction of Street View which now comprises tens of millions of photos. The service acts as the ground level layer for Google Maps and Earth which uses satellite imagery to allow users to "fly" to wherever they want in the world and view the terrain, the buildings and the streets.

Street View was launched in the US in May, 2007, and has gradually been expanded to include more cities around the world, more streets, and also some rural areas. it is available for countries including France, Italy, Spain, Australia and Japan.

Street View UK includes 25 leading cities and Google intends to cover the majority of cities and towns in the country by the end of next year. Mr Hanke said: "As a company we may not make 100 per cent of everybody happy in all situations but I don't think you can live your life as an individual or as a company not wanting to step on anybody's toes. We have to chart a course between the benefit that can come from something and adhering to social mores and the law."

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