28/04/2026
The Council is advising people that it is testing the collection of street-level photos across the municipality between **8 May and 30 May 2026** during business hours.
Authorised vehicles will collect images of roads, buildings, and public spaces within the Labasa town boundary and peri-urban areas. This is to support navigation by tourists, business advertising, and management of the Council’s assets.
# # How will this happen?
A 360 camera mounted on an authorised Council vehicle will capture images from the street around the vehicle. No photos will be taken from inside private properties or lots; however, private gardens and parts of properties may still be visible if they can be seen from traffic areas. Reasonable steps will be taken to protect privacy, including review and blurring of faces and number plates before use or publication. Sensitive locations, such as prisons, will not be photographed.
# # How will images be used?
This data will be used by Council to speed up site inspections and assess road, drain, and park maintenance. It will also build maps and list assets, such as parks, so the town knows what it has when preparing designs for the future. As the images are publicly available, anyone can view or use them, so they will also assist with discussing projects with teams in Viti Levu or overseas. If the images are useful, the collection may be expanded to peri-urban areas and potentially collected more often.
If street-level images are collected routinely in the future, there will be more detailed public consultation on how data is collected, used, and managed. Similarly, if the collection expands to peri-urban areas not next to the town boundary or to rural areas, new notices will be issued about when and how that will occur.
# # Where will the images be kept?
Images will be published publicly on Google Maps and Mapillary.com so you can see what was collected.
Google Maps is used by tourists to confirm addresses and to see places they might want to visit. It also helps businesses advertise, as they can show their shops or hotels on Google Maps and people can read contact details from business signs. This is part of increasing the information on Google Maps with more street names and numbers to help tourists navigate Labasa.
You can see examples in Savusavu, Suva, and Lautoka by clicking and dropping the yellow person icon in the bottom right corner onto an area that turns blue. Individual photos (blue dots) might not blur faces, so Council will not take individual photos.
Mapillary is linked to the open-source OpenStreetMap (OSM) service and also shows street-level images for OSM. Mapillary also identifies and marks street infrastructure and issues. For example, power poles, bins, and potentially potholes and street trees. This automatic mapping is hoped to assist Council with managing roads and maintenance of the town. There are already example photos in Labasa uploaded by the public and some isolated tests.
Information shown on both sites is publicly available from all over the world now and in the future. Because of this, privacy is highly important, and automated privacy tools will blur faces and number plates (see examples below). LTC is also discussing the project with stakeholders in government and NGOs to ensure safety and avoid sensitive areas where photos will not be taken.
# # How do I contact Council?
For further information, questions, privacy enquiries, or to request a review, please email Council at **[[email protected]]. Otherwise, you can visit the Council’s offices upstairs at the Civic Centre.
The areas that will be recorded are within the town boundary (the orange lines in the picture below).
1. Close-up of the town boundary.
2. Town boundary and peri-urban areas.
