JEDDAH, 27 March 2006 — When a permit was issued allowing motor-powered passenger gliders to fly during Jeddah’s annual summer festival, it came with strict instructions as to where flying was permitted. Only two places were designated — the Corniche with flights over the waters of the Red Sea and further inland, over the desert. At no point, were the gliders to fly over inhabited parts of the city.
“That’s so we don’t fly over people’s homes and palaces. This culture closely guards its privacy. Many would be unsettled by the thought of uninvited eyes prying from above,” the expatriate pilot of one of the craft told Arab News two summers ago.
Last summer, when Google launched Google Earth, concern grew over how much it allowed anyone with an Internet connection to view and download satellite and aerial images of the Earth from above for free. Providing detailed aerial views of such landmarks as the Pyramids of Giza, the Eiffel Tower, and Disneyland, to name but a few, Google Earth was not the first to offer this service that has some governments concerned. For providing detailed aerial image maps of government buildings, military installations and other facilities, national security officials of at least three governments have complained to Google.
John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, which has an online repository of satellite imagery, explained in a recent New York Times article, that Google didn’t acquire any new imagery, but was rather, “simply repurposing imagery that somebody else had already acquired. So if there was any harm that was going to be done by the imagery, it would have already been done.”
Unlike the high-resolution images of many parts of Cairo that allow one to zoom in enough to count the number of cars on the street, the images of Saudi Arabia stored by Google Earth are low-resolution which means that they are clear — to a point — but when one zooms in, the image blurs, preventing detailed viewing of any site, including those deemed “sensitive.”
According to Google, this is the best possible imagery of Saudi Arabia that is available from space. In the future, higher resolution images may become available.
Eileen Rodriguez with Google Corporate Communications, told Arab News: “We have not received a request to decrease the resolution of imagery of Saudi Arabia. Google Earth features high-resolution imagery of many parts of the world, and we’re continually working to upgrade the imagery in more areas.”
