14 DAY TRIAL // Placing massive amounts of data or powerful new tools at everyone’s disposal always leads to unexpected results. Many times, those results are positive, sometimes they’re not. Google Earth and Google Maps have enabled everyone in the world to access data only available to the military or powerful corporations just a decade or two ago.
While most people are using the data for sightseeing or maybe spying on their neighbours, authorities from a small town in the US are using it to look for swimming pools built without a permit, as The Next Web reports.
Officials from Riverhead in Long Island, New York, are looking at everyone’s backyard and checking for swimming pools that haven’t been registered. And they’re quick to lay down the law as well, so far $75,000 has been collected from those without permits, a nice sum for the local budget. About 250 swimming pools without proper authorization have been discovered so far and most people opted to clear their paperwork when faced with the hefty fines the authorities threatened them with.
The officials say that the only reason for the move is safety; all swimming pools are subject to regulations and must pass certain standards to be certified. The fact that the US federal government is struggling with a dwindling budget, like much of the developed world, may have had something to do with it also.
There are concerns that this may be stepping too far. Google certainly didn’t intend to have its data used for this when it made it available. And there are certainly other uses like this for enterprising authorities. In all likelyhood, we’ll be seeing a lot more cases like this. But it’s wrong to blame the technology for it. In this case, authorities could have easily done an aerial survey of the area with the same result. Google Earth just made it easier and a lot cheaper.