High-resolution satellite imagery has never been easier to buy, or to fake. For a brief window last week, the world’s most popular digital globe, Google Earth, let users manipulate satellite images with AI to create fakes grounded in real terrain. Backlash prompted the company to roll back the feature after less than a day. But its rollout demonstrated how quickly contemporary models can churn out misinformation when the right guardrails are not in place.
Authentic imagery, meanwhile, is more available than ever. Customers’ options are rapidly expanding amid an ever-growing field of international competitors that offer similar views from low Earth orbit. But the same openness that serves as a resource for researchers and journalists also allows for more sinister uses, like Iran using commercial imagery to track U.S. troops, which can prompt governments to try to crack down on what’s available. In a world crowded with providers and rife with fakes, tomorrow’s commercial satellite imagery market will be defined more by trust than access.
High-resolution satellite imagery has never been easier to buy, or to fake. For a brief window last week, the world’s most popular digital globe, Google Earth, let users manipulate satellite images with AI to create fakes grounded in real terrain. Backlash prompted the company to roll back the feature after less than a day. But its rollout demonstrated how quickly contemporary models can churn out misinformation when the right guardrails are not in place.
Authentic imagery, meanwhile, is more available than ever. Customers’ options are rapidly expanding amid an ever-growing field of international competitors that offer similar views from low Earth orbit. But the same openness that serves as a resource for researchers and journalists also allows for more sinister uses, like Iran using commercial imagery to track U.S. troops, which can prompt governments to try to crack down on what’s available. In a world crowded with providers and rife with fakes, tomorrow’s commercial satellite imagery market will be defined more by trust than access.
Earth observation was once the exclusive domain of well-resourced governments that sent up multibillion-dollar spy satellites the size of a commercial bus. Now, these satellites can be as small as a shoebox and launched by companies, not just countries. According to the American Enterprise Institute’s Space Data Navigator, there were 848 active satellites in the year 2000. There are more than 16,000 today. Thousands of these are in orbit for Earth observation and provide a critical viewpoint for research, journalism, and humanitarian work.
Among many uses, imagery has become an essential tool in revealing human rights abuses, coordinating disaster response, surveying agricultural trends, monitoring deforestation, and tracking sea level rise. Commercial providers are so plentiful that governments can leverage satellite imagery as a public relations tool, and, in turn, the public can often check a government’s claims independently.
But that same abundance creates new risks as well. Iran needed no satellite of its own to monitor U.S. troops at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq before striking it in 2020, just a vendor with imagery to sell. Even firms like China’s MizarVision, which don’t own any satellites, can still publish annotated images of U.S. military assets. If commercial providers and vendors block sales to parts of the world, a straw purchaser can often obtain imagery by concealing who it will ultimately go to. As a result, sanctioning the firms or countries that buy satellite imagery products from Western providers will not cut off access to these images. When strikes on Iran began in 2026, for example, the U.S. government requested that American commercial satellite imagery providers stop selling photos of the region, and many curbed sales – even those who said they never received such a request. But that didn’t stop European and Chinese sources, which kept selling.
Government-requested imagery blackouts create a void filled by international providers. Now, some Chinese imagery firms proudly brag about being under U.S. sanctions as a publicity tool. As a result, the degree of shutter control over satellite images that the U.S. government could once exercise, either through legal restrictions on, or exclusive purchases of, satellite imagery is no longer possible. Cutting off access was once a feasible national security solution, but today’s proliferated imagery space means the world’s militaries must plan, act, and operate as if they are under observation.
Disinformation compounds the complexity of this space, with individual and state actors doctoring satellite imagery to further foreign-policy goals. When Russia denied its role in shooting down MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, it used deceptive satellite images to further its false claims. Social media users may also create or share such fakes to garner monetized engagement. AI has only made fakes easier to generate, creating images that are sufficiently high quality to spread rapidly online.
Deceptions like these ultimately harm all imagery providers by degrading trust in their products. As a result, commercial providers face collapsing trust from the public on one side and government restrictions on the other. Efforts to entirely shut down imagery access are not only futile but would also hinder uses of it that benefit the common good. What providers can do, however, is take steps to curb the misuse of their images.
As a first step, more companies should engage in thorough vetting for individuals who purchase the most up-to-date imagery. When it comes to satellite images, timing can matter more than resolution. An older image of an air base is suited to research; one from this morning is ideal for targeting support. This means that archival imagery should remain available, including high-resolution content essential for journalism and humanitarian efforts, alongside taxpayer-funded lower-resolution imagery from programs like the United States’ Landsat and the European Union’s Copernicus. More sensitive data, like recent high-resolution imagery and satellite tasking in conflict zones, should rest behind vetting that confirms a customer’s identity and scrutinizes end use, similar to how many financial institutions know their customers.
Vetting customers represents a more effective alternative to government-imposed blackouts, and a company that can account for who holds its most sensitive imagery has a stronger case for keeping some access flowing. After American provider Planet Labs received a request from the U.S. government for a blackout during the Iran war, it implemented a more selective distribution model that could support urgent use cases. A provider that knows its customers can do this, whereas one that sells indiscriminately can only shut off access completely to comply.
Companies can also help build trust with the public by taking visible steps to confront the manipulation and abuse of their products. In addition to vetting, providers can do better at fielding claims of misuse. A dedicated portal through which customers, and even regular social media users, can submit suspect content will help providers cut off access or publicly refute deceptions with greater speed.
Communicating these actions matters, too. Imagery providers that publicize their efforts to confront misuse will maintain the public’s trust in their products, while firms that fail to do so will be missing a competitive offering. This publicity can take many forms, ranging from collaborations with journalists who report on disinformation to social media posts warning of disreputable sources. But touting their efforts to track fakes and abuse, while not revealing the method behind them, can give these firms a leg up without betraying quality-control practices.
Executives at commercial imagery companies could be reticent to draw attention to ways their products could be misused or faked, even if they are actively addressing these issues. But the reality is that deliberate misuse by bad actors and AI-fueled imagery fakes are set to bring that awareness to the public anyway.
The differentiator among imagery providers then becomes a competition of trust in process and product. A vetted customer base reassures the public that a company’s sensitive imagery rests in responsible hands. This in turn lends confidence to the imagery itself when it surfaces in media, academia, and elsewhere, because the public knows it is only available through a vetted process. There is no stopping the tide of fakes, but by establishing trust, companies can allow researchers, journalists, and the public to push back on disinformation.
Leading satellite image providers already take many important vetting and verification measures. Planet Labs screens prospective customers and runs an ethics committee. Fellow American provider Vantor supplies imagery and analysis to thousands of journalists. But these positive practices are not the norm. They vary across providers and are inconsistently rewarded by the market. The industry’s incentive structure today often rewards removing as many barriers to access as possible, and monitoring end use is discretionary. These tendencies sacrifice long-term trust for short-term sales.
As the market matures and trust gains prominence as a differentiator, providers seen as responsible and authentic sources will have the edge over competitors. Those that invest in these strategies now will lead the pack, while others that eschew them could find their products restricted by blackouts or marred by irresponsible use. With doctored or misused imagery growing more prevalent, the future of Earth observation belongs not to those with the best access, but to those seen as reliable.