Google's Street View map service became available in Greece on Thursday, after the country's privacy authority granted approval to the search giant.
Greece has become the 56th country to make the service available, according to ABC News. Greek officials said Street View, which was blocked from Greece five years ago, went live after the search giant and the country's Data Protection Authority went through "extensive and detailed" negotiations.
Street View was launched at an event in Athens. Culture Minister Panos Panagiotopoulos, who attended the event, said the service would help Greece's tourism industry. He described the country as an "endless archeological park."
"We have so much to show off. This is a godsend," Panagiotopoulos said. "Everyone knows how difficult things are, with all the obstacles that are there when dealing with the Greek state. We are trying to overcome these difficulties."
Google was also given permission to use a related service to display cultural sites, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Company officials said two-thirds of the area that Google is looking to map in Greece is covered by the service. Street View will cover most of the mainland and popular holiday islands, but not many islands that are less populated.
Official figures state that Greece was visited by almost 18 million tourists last year, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Government and industry officials say the number of tourists will increase to 20 million this year.
The country's privacy authority said in its ruling in November that Google responded to earlier reservations about Street View. These reservations included if the services blurs out the images of vehicle license plates and people's faces for the protection of their privacy, ABC News reported.
"The DPA wanted to see that our blurring technology works- we have demonstrated that it does work in 55 other countries- and safeguard the right of Internet users to report any complaints," said Dionisis Kolokotsas, a public policy manager for Google's Greek operations.
