A working party looking into the use of images of private property on Google's enhanced Street View service has asked the internet giant to shorten the period of time for which it retains images taken by its camera teams for posting on its website.

The EU justice commission-established group wants to restrict the length of time Google can keep these images to six months, according to a Reuters report. It says that it currently dispenses with them after a year.

Many people have criticised the service as it shows unobscured views of private property, and say Google has set its cameras so that they can see over walls and hedges.

Google’s global legal advisor, Peter Fleischer, was written to by the European Commission, which asked that it should halve the length of time it holds onto these images, to six months.

In its letter, the working group said it “believes that a maximum retention of six months for the unblurred copies of the images would strike the right balance between the protection of privacy and the ability to eliminate false positives.”

European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding reiterated the EU’s intention to be vigilant in safeguarding the high standards of data protection which she believes the Union sets.

“I expect that all companies play according to the rules of the game,” she said in a statement.