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censorship

Taiwan wants Google to censor satellite imagery

A recent story in the news says that Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has asked Google to blur imagery of some military structures on Itu Aba Island (also known as Taiping Island) in the South China Sea.

The South China Sea is a hotly contested area with several countries, most notabley China, building structures on the reefs of the Spratleys. We had a look at the progress last year and had a look at the latest imagery of Fiery Cross Reef in June this year.

As we have discussed before, censoring satellite imagery is more difficult than censoring other data. A number of countries censor aerial data, mapping data and 3D imagery and because those are often gathered within the countries in question, Google must comply with local laws. But satellite imagery is more difficult to censor. I has been done. It is illegal in the US to publish high resolution imagery of Israel, and Google is a US company so Israel appears in relatively low resolution in Google Maps and Google Earth. Also, imagery updates were stopped for Iraq, Afghanistan, the Ukraine and Syria although we do not know exactly how that was accomplished.

Back to this particular case, if the story is correct and if that was the only facility that Taiwan asked Google to censor, then it would appear they made a serious error. The result has been that many news outlets have published the imagery and it is now not only practically impossible to get rid of all those images, but it has become an object of attention. In addition, Google will be very unlikely to agree to censor it unless legal pressure can be brought to bear. If they were to censor it, a lot of people will notice, and it will become another news story, and then a lot of other countries will want their censorship requests to be honoured as well.

Another question would be who Taiwan wishes to hide the imagery from. Even if Google removed the image, it could still be purchased from the supplier Digital Globe, or imagery of the location could be ordered from various other commercial suppliers. A number of states also have their own spy satellites and the countries most interested in the region could probably capture aerial imagery of it if they wished.

The image that Taiwan wants censored is dated July 8th, 2016 and can only be seen in the default layer as it has not yet (as of this writing) been put in historical imagery.

The military structure in question can be seen below:

We have also created an animation showing that the airport was built since 2006 and the harbour is also being expanded.


Controlling maps in the days of satellite imaging

We recently came across this story. Apparently India is considering enacting laws which would require companies providing mapping data to get a licence and approval before disseminating maps of any kind within India. The government appears to have two major concerns. One is the correct depiction of India’s borders (as claimed by India in the case of disputed borders), and the other is a security concern about showing sensitive sites on maps.

Almost every country has had some form of censorship laws with regards to maps, but most have largely given up due to the proliferation of maps and imagery that they have no control over.

We have in the past looked at censored imagery in Google Earth, and in most cases it is aerial imagery, which a country does have legal control over. However, most obviously censored locations have alternative uncensored imagery and the censorship only serves to draw attention to the location. Censoring satellite imagery is difficult, but not impossible. If you look at the maps of imagery updates over the last year then you will notice that Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Syria have not had any updates in the past year. We have also noticed that the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea also have not received any updates since they started to get attention due to China building artificial islands there. We do not know if this is a case of censorship or not. Hawaii, has also not received updates in the same time period and we can think of no reason why that would be censored.

Several countries have apparently censored 3D imagery, most noticeably, Greece, where Airports do not receive 3D coverage. But they do have satellite imagery and in some cases Street View.


The 3D imagery around Larrisa, Greece, clearly avoids the airport.

China has strong laws about mapping and insists on its maps being offset slightly from GPS coordinates for security reasons. In this they have been largely successful, but they have no control over satellite imagery when viewed outside China, so that is correctly aligned.

Disputed borders are often displayed differently, depending on which country you view them from in order to comply with the laws of the countries in question and the same may apply to disputed names of geographic features.

The end result of all this is that censorship laws on maps typically only affect the citizens of the country in question as the laws are unenforceable outside the country’s borders.

Chinese street maps out of alignment in Google Earth and Google Maps

While investigating the recent explosions in Tianjin, China, we noticed that the street map of China is out of alignment in both Google Earth and Google Maps. It is tempting to think that the explosions were so large that they shook the street map out of place (the largest, according to Wikipedia, has been estimated as equivalent to 21 tonnes of TNT). However, after a bit of research we have discovered that the street map offset is not new and is actually a result of old Chinese regulations from the cold war era.

It turns out that all maps that are legally created in China must use the GCJ-02 coordinate system, which according to Wikipedia, uses an encryption algorithm that offsets the map by different amounts for different locations. Google has followed the regulations and partnered with Chinese map provider AutoNavi to obtain the data and always shows the map data using the required GCJ-02 datum.

As we have mentioned in previous posts on censorship, countries can control and censor mapping information such as aerial imagery, 3D imagery and street maps that is gathered within their borders, but have little control over satellite imagery unless the company that supplies it operates from within their borders. As a result, both Google Earth and Google Maps do not show the satellite data using the offset GCJ-02 datum but stick with the standard WGS-84 datum used for the rest of the world. This results in the discrepancy we see between the street map and the satellite imagery. However, the Chinese version of Google Maps intended to be viewed from within China does comply with Chinese laws and uses the GCJ-02 datum for the satellite imagery as well. As a result, the street maps and satellite imagery line up nicely, but GPS coordinates will be offset. This is dealt with by Chinese navigation systems, which must convert between the datums to give the correct location on the map.


The China / Hong Kong border in Google Earth. The streets are out of alignment on the Chinese side, but correct on the Hong Kong side. The satellite imagery matches the latitude and longitude as produced by a standard GPS.


In the Chinese version of Google Maps, the situation is reversed. The streets are aligned with satellite imagery in China, but misaligned in Hong Kong. Both satellite imagery and street maps on the Chinese side do not match latitude and longitude as produced by a standard GPS.

Apparently Bing Maps and Apple Maps also follow Chinese regulations and use the GCJ-02 datum, whereas Open Street Map does not (and is thus illegal in China).

We also mentioned China’s strict mapping regulations back in 2006.

North Korea – Statues and Uranium

We have looked at censorship of aerial imagery in Google Earth and even noted censorship of 3D imagery. However, censorship rarely extends to satellite imagery, as only the country in which the satellite imaging company is based really has much control over what is released. We believe Israel has their satellite imagery down-sampled to a lower resolution before it gets into Google Earth and Iraq and Afghanistan simply have not had any satellite imagery updates in the last few years. But most of the rest of the world gets uncensored satellite imagery and they can’t do a lot about it. In 2011, for example, we brought you a story about how Sweden was displeased that their censorship of their own mapping products was proving ineffective because of satellite imagery being uncensored.

Today we are looking at a couple of stories about North Korea. It is one of the most secretive regimes in the world, but there is little it can do about satellite imagery and the fact that it is freely available to much of the world via Google Earth.

The first story is this article from 38 North. The article makes good use of Google Earth imagery to monitor key sites related to Uranium mining and refining in North Korea. Google Earth has imagery from 2003 to 2014 for one location and 2004 to 2015 for the other. The article also features an image for one of the locations from Airbus Defence and Space that is not currently in Google Earth. Interestingly, one of the locations has an image from July 8th, 2015 that has been recently added to Google Earth. It is not yet in ‘historical imagery’ so it was likely added in the last week or so.

The second story is this one, which is about the replacement of statues of Kim Il Sung with statues featuring both Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il. Again, satellite imagery from Google Earth is used to good effect.

To find the locations mentioned in both stories download this KML file .

Although Google hasn’t updated any of its ‘imagery update’ maps since early June it is relatively easy to find updates using the historical imagery feature. You can spot changes visually as you move the timeslider or you can take screenshots of different dates and then compare them using an image editor. As you can see below, North Korea gets quite good coverage, with many locations having more frequent updates than many parts of Europe or the US. Europe and the US do have higher resolution aerial imagery, which we will not be seeing any time soon over North Korea.


Imagery updates for North Korea in Google Earth from May 2015 to date.

Note that there is some new imagery that is not yet in ‘historical imagery’ that is not shown in the above map.

Censorship in 3D

Back in September we had a look at censored imagery in Google Earth. With Google continuing to roll out 3D imagery it is inevitable that they will wish to cover areas that countries wish to keep censored. Although most countries have little or no control over satellite imagery, aerial imagery captured from aircraft has to comply with the local laws.

Cephalonia International Airport on the Greek island of Cephalonia is one such instance. Instead of simply leaving it out of the 3D imagery, Google have rendered it in an interesting blocky pattern. There are, however, uncensored satellite images for the location, as well as Street View around the edges and user submitted photos captured at the airport itself.

Thank you to GEB reader Andrew for bringing this to our attention.

To see it in Google Earth, download this KML file.

Cephalonia International Airport