Lessons from Pahalgam: Deny Geospatial Tech to Terrorists

In the fight against terrorism, preventing the misuse of civilian-commercial technologies by terrorist groups should be the priority

In 2020, the hand-to-hand combat reported between Indian and Chinese armed forces sparked significant media interest in pinpointing the exact location of the conflict—Galwan in Ladakh. This interest led to the Indian media, for the first time, engaging in conflict coverage using subscription-based commercial space imagery. Space imagery, once restricted solely to strategic government agencies, has become increasingly accessible to individuals and businesses through the democratisation of geospatial datasets. It has aided in planning and management across various civilian sectors. However, the same democratised access has opened these geospatial datasets to terrorist forces, non-state actors, and proxies, potentially enabling nefarious activities.

Read the original Expert Speak form of this piece on the Observer Research Foundation website through this weblink - https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/lessons-from-pahalgam-deny-geospatial-tech-to-terrorists