Google violating mapping law: Tarun Vijay

BJP MP Tarun Vijay Wednesday again accused Google of violating India's mapping laws by showing vital military installations with annotations and asked the government to take steps to access the data the company possessed.

Vijay, who raised the issue in a special mention in the Rajya Sabha, called upon the central government to probe the issue.

Vijay said the recce of any area was the key to preparing a military or terrorist action.

He said Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley had conducted a recce before the 26/11 Mumbai attack.

"By marking the exact military installations and objects pointedly, Google is facilitating, unintentionally, a digital recci to any potential enemy group," Tarun Vijay said in a statement.

"The glaring violation of the Google against the constitution and the law is that it showed vital military installations with annotations like depicting the core of our nuclear plant Apsara reactor on the satellite imagery, blast pens inside the Hindon defence air base, ammunition depots, marking of hangers meant for specific fighter jets as well as those jets visible outside in the high resolution images, warships in naval dockyards etc," he said.

Tarun Vijay accused the government of complicity in the matter.

"If Blackberry can be forced to provide access to its data, why shouldn't Google be also asked to do so," Tarun Vijay asked.

He said US government, under its Patriotic Act, can access any data server of a US company.