Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam expressed concern Saturday about a free mapping program from Google, warning it could help terrorists by providing satellite photos of potential targets.
Google Earth, launched in June this year, allows users to access overlapping satellite photos. Although not all areas are highly detailed, some images are very high resolution, and some show sensitive locations in various countries. At a meeting of top police officials in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, Kalam said he worried that "developing countries, which are already in danger of terrorist attacks, have been singularly chosen" for providing high resolution images of their sites.
The governments of South Korea and Thailand and lawmakers in the Netherlands have expressed similar concerns. South Korean newspapers said Google Earth provides images of the presidential Blue House and military bases in the country, which remains technically at war with communist North Korea. The North’s main nuclear facility at Yongbyon is among sites in that country displayed on the service.
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