Privacy experts are sounding the alarm over a new satellite launching in 2025 that could spy on your every move.
The satellite, made by start-up company Albedo, is of such high quality that it can zoom in on people or license plates from space, causing experts to worry it could create a “big brother is always watching” scenario.
Albedo claims that the satellite will not have facial recognition software, but does not mention that it will refrain from imaging people or protecting people’s privacy.
Albedo signed two separate multimillion-dollar contracts with the U.S. Air Force and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center to help the government monitor potential threats to U.S. national security.
Albedo claims that the satellite will not have facial recognition software, but does not mention that it will refrain from imaging people or protecting people’s privacy.
The company last month raised $35 million to commercialize its Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellite, adding to the $48 million it raised in September 2022.
Albedo co-founder Topher Haddad said he and his team hope to eventually have a fleet of 24 spacecraft.
“This is a giant camera in the sky that any government can use at any time without our knowledge,” Jennifer Lynch, general counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the New York Times.
“We certainly should be concerned.”
“It brings us one step closer to a world that’s watching Big Brother,” added Jonathan C. McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard.
Albedo was founded in 2020 and began building its satellites with its close-up technology the following year, made possible by the Trump administration’s moves to relax government regulations on civilian satellite resolution in 2018.
Then-President Donald Trump updated the U.S. Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices and established new guidelines for the design and operation of satellites.
Under previous National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) regulations, it was illegal to build a satellite that could see less than 30 centimeters — at that range it could only identify cars and houses, but not individual people.
But under Trump’s new directive, satellites would be allowed to track objects in space that were about 4 inches in size, which would improve the way the Air Force could catalog objects.
The satellites use nighttime thermal infrared images to determine whether an object is passive or active and whether it is moving
Most satellites are in orbit at a distance of about 160 km (100 miles) to 2,000 km (1,242 miles) from Earth, and all can currently target objects with a diameter of about 30 centimeters (one foot) .
From this distance, satellites can only view things like street signs and aircraft tail numbers, but Albedo wants to zoom in even closer.
The company’s satellites will take images as small as 10 centimeters (four inches) in diameter, with telescope mirrors polished to the size of 1/1000 the size of a human hair.
Albedo’s satellites will be about 160 km from the Earth’s surface and can be used for life-saving measures, such as helping authorities map disaster areas. Experts are concerned that they will instead be used to track individuals and compromise people’s privacy
The smaller centimeter images mean that the images are not as pixelated, allowing those using the satellite to view objects, places and people more accurately.
The satellites will be around 160 km from the Earth’s surface and can be used for life-saving measures, such as helping authorities map disaster areas.
Albedo’s satellites use an intuitive interface to track and track trends for existing imagery, and its cloud-centric delivery pipeline can gather information in less than an hour.
Haddad expressed concern that the satellites would destroy people’s right to privacy public forumwriting that the company is “well aware of the privacy implications and potential for abuse/misuse,” and expects this to be “an ongoing, evolving issue over time.”
He confirmed that the satellite’s 10-centimeter resolution can identify people, but claimed the company will only approve customers on a case-by-case basis and “build robust internal tools to find bad actors, as well as the obvious measures of the adding penalty clauses to our general terms and conditions.’
In March 2022, Albedo received one $1.25 million contract with the U.S. Air Force for the second phase of development to determine if the satellites could identify missile tubes on warships, hardware on electronics vans and fairings on fighter jets.
The company also said its satellites can help governments “monitor hotspots, eliminate uncertainty and mobilize at speed.”
Albedo’s satellites will hover just 100 miles above the Earth’s surface, capturing tiny details such as missile tubes on warships, hardware on electronics vans and fairings on fighter jets.
In April 2023, Albedo signed another $1.25 million contract with the National Air and Space Intelligence Center – which assesses foreign threats – for nighttime thermal infrared imaging that combines visible and thermal imagery to detect whether an object is active or passive and whether it is moving or stationary.
“We are committed to enhancing the Air Force and Space Force’s ability to understand its performance in the face of our challenges and to apply our capabilities in space,” said Joseph Rouge, deputy director of Intelligence, Surveillance and US Space Force exploration.
“Night-time thermal infrared imaging can help our intelligence analysts, warfighters, decision makers and field operators solve complex emerging threats around the clock,” he added.
The company then signed a two-and-a-half-year contract in December contract with the National Reconnaissance Office to use the satellite’s thermal infrared data to “provide geospatial intelligence for climate, food security and the environment through daily surface temperature data and analysis.”
Haddad claimed the technology will help curb climate change by showing which regions are most affected, while also saying the technology “can simultaneously be used to support our national defense mission and alleviate our global environmental/climate crisis.”
This latter reasoning is alarming to experts who say that while VLEO satellites can be helpful in some scenarios, the potential for overreach and human rights violations is becoming increasingly worrying.
John Pike, the director of Global Security.org, told the New York Times that Albedo is downplaying the potential effects of creating a satellite that can distinguish human shapes.
“You’re going to see people,” he told the outlet. ‘You’ll see more than just dots.’
In the past, private satellites have proven useful for research and commercial use, helping the government with things like “tracking global oil supplies, measuring deforestation in the Amazon, and identifying boats engaged in illegal fishing.” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). ).
“They have also been used to expose human rights abuses, providing evidence of labor camps in North Korea and Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria,” it added in discussing proposed licensing rules to private satellites.
But the EFF said that beyond these positive uses, more detailed satellites could infringe on human rights, saying: “The same technology that reveals human rights abuses can also be used to perpetuate them.”
Experts fear this could mean that privacy will become a thing of the past and government agencies will be able to watch anyone, anytime, anywhere without their knowledge.
“This is a giant camera in the sky that any government can use at any time without our knowledge,” Jennifer Lynch, the EFF’s general counsel, told the New York Times, adding: “We should certainly be concerned to make.’