HELSINKI (AFP) - Finnish police have started a criminal investigation into Google's "Street View" picture maps for suspected breach of privacy legislation.

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Police in Raahe, some 600 kilometres (370 miles) north of Helsinki, began the investigation Thursday at the request of a man whose picture could been seen online on Google's Street View maps, he said.

"You can see a man sitting in a rocking chair," detective sergeant Hannu Vainionpaeae told AFP. "He is wearing a shirt but no trousers."

Vainionpaeae declined to comment on whether it was possible to identify the man sitting in the garden of a private residence in Raahe in the picture, taken in summer.

Street View, launched in Finland earlier this week, allows users to take a ground level panoramic view of some locations on Google Maps, based on still photographs taken by specially-equipped vehicles.

The investigation, the first of its kind in Finland, will determine whether Google broke the law for unauthorized surveillance and if the Internet giant violated privacy legislation when the images were taken and posted online, Vainionpaeae said.

"The image in itself is evidence in this case," he said.

According to Finnish law, unauthorized surveillance holds a maximum penalty of fines and one year in prison, while the distribution of material in breach of privacy carries a maximum two-year prison term and fines, Vainionpaeae said.