Planet Labs, one of the world’s leading commercial satellite imaging companies, said Friday it is placing a hold on releasing imagery of some parts of the Middle East as a regional war enters its second week.
Planet wants to prevent “adversarial actors” from using images for “Battle Damage Assessment” purposes.
The military censor in Israel does the exact same thing: ostensibly to prevent enemies from using the data to improve their systems, in reality as an attempt to keep domestic morale high (it only ever manages to slow down the inevitable fall, though).