Google’s latest 3D rendered maps of four cities of Taiwan have accidentally revealed the locations of missile defence locations in the island in Taiwan, including a secret Patriot missile defence base. Currently, Taipei is rushing to push further the tech giant to blur the maps over those sites who revealed locations of secret Taiwan missile sites.
Google Map has in 2012 announced its intentions to stereophotogrammetrically map various of the world’s major cities, further enabling users to watch them in three dimension figure with incredible detail.
According to Sputnik news reports, the updated maps of the cities of Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan and Taichung on Taiwan Island, which used to govern itself independently of China, were released on Wednesday to the public.
Google Earth 3D rendered some nice images of SAM sites in Taiwan – https://t.co/nAyCEoEXH3 pic.twitter.com/NmwTDUcBvQ
— Alert 5 (@alert5) February 15, 2019
However, Taipei officials were quick to respond to photo release that the pictures were little too detailed according to their comfort.
Google Maps are so good that they had previously revealed unknown missile bases along with other defence installations across Taipei. The pictures were so detailed that it is possible to for anyone to tell what kind of missiles and vehicles are being shown, as well as the previously secret Patriot base in Ankeng, including defence infrastructure at the military intelligence bureau and the national security bureau, according to South China Morning Post reports.
Taiwan to talk with Google over exposed missile positionhttps://t.co/mO6SE19bmj pic.twitter.com/XM1DrzNL7Y
— Focus Taiwan (CNA English News) (@Focus_Taiwan) February 15, 2019
The ministry of national defence is now rushing to get Google to blur the moves over those locations, ministry chief Yen Teh-Fa told the Legislative Yuan on Friday, according to the Central News Agency.
However, Yen reassured the legislature and the public, saying, “The site of defence infrastructure at times of peace does not indicate its location at times of war”, CNA reported.
Under the Fort Act in Taiwan, it is illegal to reveal the locations of their military structures, although Yen noted that “the confidential parts are all inside the structures, which would be highly difficult to expose through the 3D maps”.