MIL/Agencies/TNW, Feb 6, 2007. Author: Erika Morphy
February 6, 2007 - Google has reportedly agreed to comply with requests from the Indian government to blur sensitive images of India's military bases and government buildings that could be seen via the Google Earth mapping application. India is not alone -- over the last few years, Google has received various requests.
The government of India has asked Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) to blur sensitive images of its military bases and buildings that can be seen with its mapping application, Google Earth -- a source of concern to top Indian officials since at least 2005.
Google has reportedly agreed to show fuzzy, low-resolution pictures of certain building installations after talks with the officials.
India is not alone in its concerns. Over the last few years, the search engine has received various requests from other governments for similar considerations.
False Protection
Google has largely complied with these requests. Yet as imaging technology becomes more and more prevalent, it is likely that abiding by them will do little good.
"Since the technology to create such images already exists, blurring them on Google Earth is unnecessary and it would give a sense of false protection," Dorota Huizinga, associate dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University, Fullerton, told TechNewsWorld.
"If Google has it (an image), then the intelligence [offices] of many countries probably have something much better," she continued. "I think that the governments are better off accepting the fact the technology can be very intrusive, and that they should take protective measures to minimize potential negative impacts of these technologies, instead of asking Google to blur images."
What Should Be Blurred?
The existence of these images also poses an interesting quandary for concerned governments.
"They have to identify which buildings are sensitive and must be blurred," Matt Booth, senior vice president and program director of interactive local media for the Kelsey Group, told TechNewsWorld.
Google, as well, has to weigh certain issues. On one hand, it does not want to be an unwitting tool for terrorists; on the other, fulfilling these one-off changes to the Google Earth product will increase the maintenance costs of offering these products, Booth pointed out. More than likely though, Google will err on the side of security.
The decision, however, may be out of Google's hands to a certain extent.
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