BBC
Aid organizations and journalists have expressed concerns after a major satellite imaging company told its users it was restricting access to images from Iran and much of the Middle East following a request from the US government.
California-based Planet Labs initially introduced a 14-day deadline to provide new images of the region in March. The restriction has since been changed to an “indefinite” duration.
The decision limited how journalists, humanitarian groups and analysts can use satellite imagery to assess the impact of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, including damage to military targets and civilian infrastructure.
It’s unclear what prompted the United States to pressure Planet to suspend its coverage, and the Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Planet initially said its initial 14-day delay policy was intended to “ensure our footage is not tactically exploited by adversary actors to target NATO Allied and partner personnel and civilians.”
It said in a statement to BBC Verify that it was now moving to a “managed distribution” system and would share selected images “on an ad hoc basis until the security risk has diminished”.
He declined to specify the extent of the restrictions. But based on BBC Verify’s access to the portal, it appears to extend across most of the Middle East, including Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and Gaza.
A satellite imagery expert told BBC Verify that companies like Planet that have military contracts can sometimes implement “voluntary compliance” requests that are actually “driven by commercial incentive structures.”
BBC Verify has used Planet footage from across the Middle East in its reporting, including since the start of the Iran war in late February – such as when a US strike on a school in the Iranian city of Minab.
These changes now mean that images taken after March 9 are no longer routinely accessible to the company’s customers.
Satellite imagery has become a key tool for journalists, according to investigative journalist Benjamin Strick, who has worked for CNN, the Financial Times and the BBC.
This is particularly true for “conflict zones, disasters and other restricted environments where journalists cannot safely access the scene or where information is tightly controlled,” he explained.
Planet’s business model is similar to other players in the industry. It has expanded its collaboration with the US defense sector, including the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and, through a subsidiary, the US Navy. She also works with the German and Swedish armies.
Vantor, formerly known as Maxar, has contracts with the U.S. Army and U.S. Space Force and limits coverage of U.S. military bases. However, he told Reuters earlier this week that Pentagon officials had not asked him to restrict his coverage of Iran.
Bill Greer, a geospatial analyst who previously worked at Maxar and co-founded the nonprofit satellite service Common Space, noted that the number of defense contracts held by companies like Planet gives governments a certain degree of influence over them.
“What we are seeing now is voluntary compliance driven by commercial incentive structures, not legal mandates,” he told BBC Verify.
“When your biggest customer is also the government that regulates you, the line between voluntary and involuntary becomes very thin.”
Greer also observed that humanitarian groups were affected by restrictions on satellite imagery.
“When an entire region goes dark indefinitely, it directly affects [their] ability to plan evacuations, assess damage, document human rights violations and coordinate the delivery of aid,” he said.
The charity Oxfam told BBC Verify it uses satellite imagery to plan some of its logistics during conflicts and disasters live.
The group’s humanitarian chief, Magnus Corfixen, said that in Gaza – where Planet also suspended its coverage – satellite services helped it run its water, sanitation and hygiene (Wash) programme.
“We couldn’t personally access these water systems,” he said. “So we tried to use satellite imagery to see if they were still operational or if they had been destroyed.”
He added that, based on the review of the footage, Oxfam then planned the equipment to be transported to the Gaza Strip.
Todd Harrison – a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former US Air Force captain – told BBC Verify that the Iranian military has its own limited satellite surveillance capabilities, making it heavily dependent on Russia, China and “whatever imagery they can acquire from commercial providers.”
“US and European commercial companies have some of the best space surveillance capabilities in the world,” he said.
“This data would be extremely valuable to Iran in its efforts to strike targets across the Middle East…and assess the effectiveness of its strikes.”
Concerns have also been raised that bad actors may have also taken advantage of restrictions on Iranian images to proliferate fakes online.
Amir Farhand, founder of Soar.Atlas, an Australian mapping platform that uses satellite imagery, told BBC Verify that it had detected “a massive increase in fake satellite imagery during this conflict”, adding that the trend was “becoming a serious problem”.
In the absence of Planet’s services, its news clients, such as the BBC and the New York Times, have turned to non-U.S.-based solutions.
But Christoph Koettl, a visual investigative reporter at The New York Times, said the resolution proposed by some of those services – like the European Space Agency – didn’t offer the same level of detail or extensive coverage.
“The images are blurrier. I can’t distinguish between cars, vehicles, that sort of thing,” he said. “With a provider like Planet Labs, the advantage is that they image almost every location on Earth once a day.”
Harrison said he expects restrictions such as those requested from Planet to become more common, but increasingly futile as the industry grows and new suppliers emerge across the world.
“Because dual-use technologies like this become increasingly democratized, they make the modern battlefield more transparent than ever for both sides,” he said.
“This is a reality that the United States and other countries will have to adapt to in the way they plan and conduct military operations.”
