Belgian military sees no danger from Google's imagery

Sunday, May 28, 2006 (19:47 UTC)

Belgeoblog has news (in Dutch) of the Belgian military's stance on Google's high resolution imagery. The verdict? Unlike the Dutch, the Belgians are "not afraid" that Google's imagery might be useful to terrorists, according to the Belga press agency, citing military sources.

Transcribing more fully, then, from the original article posted on Belgeoblog:

The Belgian Ministry of Defence is not planning on censoring Google's imagery, as the Dutch have done (blogged here and here), a spokesman has told Belga. The spokesman points out that in any case, such imagery has been available for years from commercial providers.

According to the article, Belgium's defence experts further maintain that mere access to high-resolution images is not sufficient to glean anything useful from them. Image analysis is a specialty that takes advanced training, and requires combining information from images with other intelligence sources, they say.

Glad to hear it. Proud to be Belgian:-). Perhaps Google could reward such a positive attitude by giving Belgium some high-resolution love, say, around Antwerp?

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