We received the following email this morning:

As the owner of this rare car, I would request that this image be deleted from this site on the grounds of privacy.

If my car was parked outside my house and it was captured on Google’s street maps facility, at least they respect an individual’s privacy by blurring out vehicle licence plates. This aspect also extents to images in the media such as newspapers and TV broadcasts.

Additionally, I was not approached or contacted regarding the inclusion of my car for a third parties financial gain.

I agreed to appear at this show because the organiser of this event is a personal friend.

Please respect my request – thank you.

This is a perfectly polite and reasoned request. But what is at stake here? We’re under no obligation to take down images because the subject of the photograph objects to his property being depicted. If he doesn’t want his car to be seen he shouldn’t take it out in public.

Yes, the photograph was posted on fotoLibra for the purpose of financial gain. We haven’t yet found someone who is planning a calendar of AC cars, but we always live in hope.

You can’t stop anyone taking and publishing a photograph of your house, and it’s a lot easier to find out who lives in a house than who owns a car. Just check the electoral roll, or the census. We as private individuals can’t find out who owns this car by looking at the registration plate (which we’ve pixelated out here).

©Geoff Alan France / fotoLibra

But private parking companies can get a driver’s name and address simply by submitting the vehicle registration number to the DVLA and filling in a form confirming that they are pursuing an alleged parking offence.

The DVLA charges £2.50 a time for details from its ‘confidential’ database of 38m drivers. Income from this lucrative sideline in selling our personal data has risen every year from £4.7million in 2004-5 to £9.2m for 2009-10.

The owner of the car might find more reason to complain about this collaboration than about an enthusiastic photograph in a picture library.

What do you think?