Almost as if taking a page out of George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984, a startup called Albedo is building a satellite that can zoom in on anyone’s face anywhere in the world from space.
Knewz.com has learned that the applicational implications of this satellite, which is reportedly set to launch in 2025, have raised concerns among privacy experts.
On the official website, Albedo claims to be the first company that can “offer aerial-quality imagery from space.” The satellite is set to hover over the Earth’s surface at a distance of 100 miles, thus flying in very low orbit.
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However, privacy experts have raised several concerns regarding the fact that the existence of this satellite might spell the end of privacy, as it is reportedly capable of zooming in on people’s faces and license plates, potentially imposing a state of constant surveillance.
Jennifer Lynch, general counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who in 2019 urged civil satellite regulators to address this issue, said in a statement to The New York Times, “This is a giant camera in the sky for any government to use at any time without our knowledge… We should definitely be worried.”
“It’s taking us one step closer to a Big-Brother-is-watching kind of world,” Jonathan C. McDowell, a Harvard astrophysicist who publishes a monthly report on civilian and military space developments, weighed in.
Dr. Linda Zall, a former C.I.A. official who has worked with some of the most powerful U.S. spy satellites, also talked about the potential breach of privacy the new satellite could bring about.
“It’s a big deal. Privacy is a real issue,” she told The New York Times, who reported her as saying that people will be able to grasp the full extent of the problem the satellite poses “when people realize that things they’re trying to hide in their backyards can now be observed with new clarity.”
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In a recent open forum Q&A, Haddad said, “We’re acutely aware of the privacy implications and potential for abuse/misuse. There isn’t a straightforward or easy answer to this, but we want to be ahead of the curve and not repeat the mistakes that other companies have made in the past. We expect this to be an ongoing, evolving issue over time, but also something we want to start thinking about from day one.”
“As far as practical steps, we’ll be approving new customers on a case-by-case basis, building our robust internal tools to find bad actors, as well as the obvious measures of adding punitive clauses to our terms and conditions. We know that’s not enough and we’d love to hear any other ideas folks have on this,” Haddad added.
“The positive applications related to climate and human rights issues are exciting, but we realize we have to properly address privacy and misuse prevention before we can start to open those former conversations. In terms of personal privacy, 10cm resolution does enable one to identify a person (you can detect people in good sun conditions, but not identify),” he added.
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The prospect of the ethical use of the “Big Brother” satellite from Albedo was pointed out by Mark Bender, a pioneer of satellite journalism, who said that reporters on the ground can be harassed and blocked, whereas “cameras in space are safe from those kinds of pressures.”
“They’ve become as indispensable to a free society as a hand-held camera or a printing press,” Bender said in a statement to The New York Times.
* Original Article:
‘Big Brother’: Privacy Experts Warn of New Satellite That Can Zoom in on Anyone, Anywhere From Space