Shutting down Street View in an entire country would be the Internet search giant’s most severe response yet to complaints it is violating people’s privacy.

The Mountain View, California-based company said Wednesday it will ask the Swiss Federal Tribunal to throw out a lower court decision that obliged it to ensure all faces and vehicle license plates are blurred.

“We will try our very best to preserve Street View for Swiss users,” said Patrick Warnking, Google’s country manager for Switzerland.

“I want to say clearly and unequivocally that we take data protection seriously,” he added. “We have already taken measures to protect the identity of individuals and vehicles in Street View. And we hope that this will be appropriately recognized in the appeals process.”

Google has one of its biggest offices outside the United States in Zurich, where hundreds of engineers develop new services for the company. It says Street View is being used by some 1,000 websites in Switzerland, providing tourism information, real estate listings and other services.

As part of a publicity drive earlier this year, it took its Street View cameras into the Alps to photograph the country’s spectacular ski slopes.

The Swiss data protection office said it welcomed Google’s decision to go to the top court and get a final ruling in the matter.

Not all countries have been so sensitive about Street View.

In Finland, privacy concerns abated once Google offered users a tool to blur faces and car plates.

Israel announced in February that it is considering ways for Google to photograph Israeli cities, despite concerns the service could be used by terrorists to plot attacks against sensitive locations or political figures.

Joe McNamee of the Brussels-based advocacy group European Digital Rights said people had a right to privacy, but demanding absolute guarantees was unusual.

“As a general rule regulators don’t ask for 100 percent certainty on anything,” he said.