Friday, May 18. 2007

Another article about blurred imagery on Web portals

The San Francisco Chronicle rekindles the discussion after remarks last week by the head of NGA on censorship of imagery. Quote of note:

Google has engaged, and will continue to engage, in substantive dialogue with recognized security experts and relevant agencies worldwide. While we're unable to provide details of these discussions, the dialog may, in some rare cases, result in a change of imagery availability.

- John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Maps

There's also a discussion with my state's GIS coordinator, Christian Jacqz, director of Massachusetts Geographic Information System. He notes the state worked with the state police to blur out potentially dangerous targets. That data is suppled to Google Earth, though Jacqz is aware unblurred data is out there.