This UK Satellite’s Thermal Camera Raises Major Privacy Concerns

Source Domain: www.slashgear.com

Modern technology often comes with safety concerns, including everything from mobile apps that track your location to traffic cameras that store your personal information. Those concerns also extend to SatVu’s HotSat-2, a thermal imaging satellite currently orbiting the Earth. HotSat-2 can monitor everything from industrial operations to heat patterns in large cities, and it can even detect movement inside buildings. This raises some serious questions about privacy.

HotSat-2 doesn’t work like an X-ray camera that can see through walls, or even everyday tech that can track your activity. But the technology it utilizes has reportedly been used for intelligence missions, including monitoring a nuclear facility in North Korea. SatVu’s capabilities are so precise that the company says its thermal imagery can determine whether specific equipment, such as pumps at a nuclear reactor, is operating or inactive based on its heat signature. The company has also demonstrated the tech’s capability through previous imagery at other locations, including Japan’s Yokosuka Naval Base, the Ruwais Refinery in the United Arab Emirates, and the Albuquerque International Airport in the U.S.

As of this writing, there has been no documented evidence that SatVu has violated anyone’s privacy or personal liberties with its thermal imaging technology. However, the fact that this technology exists and could potentially be used for those purposes is alarming. The company’s stated applications for its satellite technology does include national security, where SatVu says its thermal data can be used to monitor activity, patterns, and anomalies in areas of “strategic importance.”