Google Earth raises security concerns

The availability of three dimension images of sensitive installations on 'Google Earth', has raised concerns among global space policy makers about the security aspect, a space policy analyst said in Mumbai on Tuesday.

"Due to a lack of a global policy, it would hard to prohibit a satellite of a foreign country to take images of any sensitive Indian location. That's where most of these dual purpose (where it could be used either by military or by civilians) technologies, may it be remote sensing or GPS, needs a better global policy," the analyst, K V Ganpathy said.

"We need to be very careful about the fact that there are technologies, capable of providing real-time analysis combined by high-resolution images on thermal bands where even the motion of an individual or an object inside the building could be tracked", he told PTI.