Public Access to Satellite Imagery- Is it a Monster in the making?

You might have heard that Google Earth was a component used in the recently foiled JFK terrorist plot. This is not surprising. These tools are powerful to those who want to use them in a negative fashion.

While Satellite and Aerial imagery has been around for years-it has not been so accessible to everday users and the bad-guys. The concern is that Googles Street View enables a zoom feature that is so crystal clear it shows faces and even license tag numbers.

In the wrong hands, these tools can be exploited in a negative manner.
Google claims that images are 6 months to 3 years old. But this is today. Future systems will be real-time with accurate up-to-the-moment imagery. If these images are made readily available -we will have Satellite surveilance systems open to the general population-globally.

These tools, like others, can be leveraged to a degree for different levels of data collection. There are talks to delay images in the morning for night release. That's a good start. But if your image is on there-with a 24 hour delay-it is still on the system. Therefore, you may not have any control over privacy in general.

Think of Paparazzi's Gone Wild. These snatched images may be the foundation of the next radical YouTube like service. Unwilling people caught in unflattering snapshots.

I can promise you-there will be both positive and negative uses of these types of tools. There will also be ongoing discussions with associated legislative laws to follow. It is only a matter of time.