Belgium to sue Google for not blurring images of sensitive locations

September 28

19:54 2018

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The Belgian Defense Ministry has announced its intention to sue Google for not complying with orders to obscure satellite images of sensitive civilian and military sites.

The complaint was issued on Friday and is due to address concerns regarding possible national security risks posed by Google provided images of sensitive locations such as nuclear power stations and military sites, according to a Belgian Defense Ministry spokeswoman.

Google Belgium spokesperson Michiel Sallaets dismissed the claims, asserting that it had been collaborating with Belgian authorities for more than two years. “It’s a shame the Belgium Department of Defense have decided to take this decision.”

Google is known to occasionally cooperate with some governments over their security concerns in public imaging services such as Google Earth, Google Maps and Street View.

The recent conflict between Belgium and Google, however, comes amid rising tensions between the European Union and big tech companies such as Google and Facebook over their lack of compliance with the Union’s consumer rights and protection laws.

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The European Union has called on social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to adhere to the European laws on user terms.

Facebook has come under additional scrutiny after European Union lawmakers submitted a draft to the Union’s Civil Liberties and Justice Committee on Thursday demanding a “full and independent audit” of Facebook's platform and its private data protection policies as a result of the company's private user information abuse revealed in the case of Trump's presidential campaign data firm Cambridge Analytica in early 2018.