Taiwan to Ask Apple to Blur Top-Secret Radar Base

Taiwan will reportedly ask Apple to blur a top-secret radar base which appears in its new Maps application for iOS 6, reports Phys.org.

The defence ministry reacted after the Liberty Times newspaper printed a satellite picture, downloaded with an iPhone 5, showing a top-secret long-range radar base in the northern county of Hsinchu.

"Regarding images taken by commercial satellites, legally we can do nothing about it," the ministry's spokesman David Lo told reporters. "But we'll ask Apple to lower the resolution of satellite images of some confidential military establishments the way we've asked Google in the past," he said, referring to the Google Earth programme.


The Hsinchu base houses a long-range radar purchased from the United States in 2003. It's construction is expected to be completed by the end of the year, costing $1.23 billion. Once operational it will provide Taiwan minutes of extra warning in case of a Chinese missile attack.

Apple has not yet received a formal request from the government to blur the images.

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