Search engine Google will begin collecting images for a South African Street View feature on Google Maps.

In the coming weeks Google, using a fleet of Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles, will drive around South Africa, taking photographs of street scenes, covering Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Durban.

Street View is already available in more than one hundred metropolitan areas around the world, but only in 12 countries in total.

It allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighbourhood through panoramic street-level images.

It will, for example, once operational, allow Internet users to 'stand' on Maude street in Sandton, for example, panning 360˚ to view Sandton City, the convention centre, and the nearby hotels. Tourists would be able to find information on restaurants, hotels, directions to venues and have a look-see at the surroundings, parking availability, and the nature of the area.

House buyers will be able to view the house they want to buy, and develop a feel for the neighbourhood.

Businesses can also benefit from the Street View technology by embedding Google Maps directly into their site for free, helping them to promote a chain of hotels or raise awareness about a local library or restaurant, for example.

Images collected by the cars will be processed and stitched together, a technological process that can take several months.

“We are not launching Street View today, we are only launching the collection of data for Street View,” said Google country manager for South Africa, Stephen Newton in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

“The launch [of Street View] will be . . . way before 2010.”

Google business product manager Jaroslav Bengl noted that collecting the data alone will take several months.

For those people concerned about privacy, faces and number plates will be blurred in all images, said Bengl.

Google, organising the world's data, as the company's philosophy professes, face growing concerns about privacy issues.

Bengl added that anybody is welcome to post an online request to erase them, or their house, or car, from of an image.

“We respond in hours. We take it very seriously.”

“Street View is going to make South Africa more accessible both to locals and to international visitors,” said Minister of Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

“It will give tourists a taste of the variety that the country offers, and a chance to research their holidays in advance, all with the click of a mouse. Ahead of the World Cup, we're pleased to have Google bringing us some of their most innovative technology so that we can showcase South Africa to the world.”

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Google and supplying our fuel efficient and environmentally friendly Prius for this groundbreaking project in South Africa,” added Toyota South Africa senior vice-president sales and marketing Andrew Kirby.