https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/...or-big-savior/

Most law enforcement personnel in the United States are familiar with software programs like Google Earth that allow anyone with an Internet-enabled device to look at high-resolution, sometimes 3D, images of anywhere on earth. Those programs have become useful in numerous industries like business, real estate, education, and law enforcement. The potential ability for police to use these platforms to view cities in real time, instead of just using high-resolution photographs, will arguably change the police profession. If satellite imagery become ubiquitous, would police agencies be seen as saviors or as “big brother”?

How Did We Get Here?

The idea that live-streaming satellite images could be technologically possible and available to the public seems like an idea out a futuristic movie or science fiction novel, but the reality is that the technology exists today. To understand how that’s possible, one must look back at events that laid the foundation for the evolution of live-streaming images and the laws created to regulate their use.

In 2014, the U.S. government began allowing sharper satellite images to be taken, used, and sold at sizes as small as 31 cm.1 Before then, satellite image providers weren’t allowed to sell black-and-white images with a resolution higher than 50 cm or color images with a spatial resolution better than 2 m.2 What does the 2014 decision mean for law enforcement?It means that vehicles and vehicle license plates would be distinguishable. Human faces would be recognizable and possibly clear enough to run through facial recognition algorithms.

Originally Posted By A-GAME⏩