Planet imposes imagery delays

Planet Labs told customers on March 9 that it would start holding back some satellite imagery from Iran and nearby areas for 14 days instead of releasing it within hours. (breakingdefense.com) The delayed-release zone covered Iran, nearby military bases, the Gulf states and what Planet called “existing conflict zones,” according to the customer notice obtained by Breaking Defense. (breakingdefense.com) Planet had already imposed a 96-hour delay earlier in March, then extended it to two weeks as the war that began on February 28 spread across the region. Bloomberg reported the March 9 extension, and Reuters later said the company made the policy retroactive to imagery collected since that date. (bloomberg.com) (cnbc.com) Commercial Earth observation works like a constantly updated camera network in orbit: companies such as Planet sell fresh images to governments, newsrooms, traders and researchers. Planet says it was founded in 2010 and built its business around imaging the world every day. (annualreports.com) (sec.gov) That speed has made commercial imagery part of modern war coverage. Reuters said Planet’s images are used for target identification, weapons guidance, missile tracking and communications, while journalists and academics use the same pictures to verify strikes and assess damage in places they cannot safely reach. (cnbc.com) (yahoo.com) Breaking Defense reported that three industry sources said United States officials had quietly urged companies to limit public access to imagery of the conflict zone, even without a formal order. On April 5, Planet said it would go further and indefinitely withhold imagery of Iran and the wider Middle East conflict region after what it described as a United States government request. (breakingdefense.com) (cnbc.com) Planet told customers it would switch to “managed distribution,” releasing some images case by case for mission-critical needs or when it judged release to be in the public interest. The Pentagon declined to comment to Reuters, and Planet did not respond to Reuters’ request for further comment. (cnbc.com) Other providers have not described the same policy in the same way. Reuters reported that Vantor, formerly Maxar Technologies, said it had not been contacted by the United States government, though it said it was applying its own tighter access controls in parts of the Middle East. (cnbc.com) The result is a more predictable blackout window for one of the world’s biggest commercial imagery feeds. For anyone building near-real-time monitoring around Planet data, scenes from sensitive areas can now arrive days late or move into restricted release with little warning. (breakingdefense.com)