Recently, officials from Greece to Long Island have used Google Earth’s satellite imagery to track down unregistered or unpermitted swimming pools. It may be possible to hide from the eyes of tax officials, but it’s difficult to make a pool invisible to satellites floating overhead. Indeed, while the suburbs of Athens had just 324 taxpayers report their swimming pools, a Google Earth-based examination discovered there were actually 16,974.

Now, Foreign Policy has a fascinating article describing the many ways these maps have been used around the globe.

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