Dutch blogs are reporting today that the country’s three largest parties have all formally asked parliament the government for an investigation into whether Google Earth presents a national security risk. If you read Dutch,
Kamer wil onderzoek naar veiligheidsrisico Google Earth
Onderzoek naar Google Earth niet nodig
Politieke ophef over risico’s Google Earth
Google Earth als inzet komkommernieuws
The last post in this list is wonderfully laconic, and basically regards the existence of this story as evidence of the summer doldrums. The Dutch cabinet, meanwhile, has said that such an investigation is unnecessary, as the information already is available elsewhere. In fact, there is an established Dutch website that specializes in high-resolution images of the Netherlands, http://www.vanuitdelucht.nl/.
One motivation for such calls is undoubtedly a notion that Google is being hypocritical when it willingly censors Area 51 and White House environs but is unwilling to grant other governments the same courtesy. This view misunderstands how the data is gathered, as James Fee pointed out in an earlier comment. Google Earth buys the data mostly off US remote sensing companies such as DigitalGlobe. It is these companies that are tightly regulated — read DigitalGlobe’s product release policy. For it to operate, it needs to abide by US government restrictions — namely, thou shalt white-out the White House. Foreign remote sensing operations obviously need not. US companies can buy foreign uncensored data if they wish. No doubt Google could, but if it did, this would result in even less censorship, not more. And why should it, anyway? Google Earth is a free product. People who must see the roof of the White House can call a French company. Area 51 overlays are over here.
There is a domestic American variant to this meme:
Are mapping software’s [sic] putting armed forces at risk?
OK, I’m pissed off and confused
google Earth Makes Troups [sic] Furious
The defense here is the same: Governments, terrorists and anyone else with some cash can already get at this information. We might as well level the playing field, then, by making it available to all. Wouldn’t it be a trip if somebody on Google Earth Hacks found Osama Bin Laden?
Imagery and Security (Again)
It seems each time a new and inventive way of delivering old or even new imagery comes along, the security card gets raised yet again. I reported on concerns about Australian nuclear facilities caused authorities in Australia to consider asking Google to
That would be cool. Even cooler would be a 4th dimension added to GE: Time. True, global high resolution data gets fairly rare fairly quickly as you go back less than even a decade. But it would be nice to have an accurate catalog of change from one year’s aerials to the nexts’.
Yes! Absolutely. That’s another great category for metadata for overlays as well. You could move a big lever and see the a neighbour hood “develop” over the years. Probably will be a bit of a tour de force technically, however.