A police complaint has been filed against Google by Survey of India (SOI) for allegedly displaying incorrect map of India’s international boundaries.
The search engine giant has been accused of having leaked coordinates of classified areas not officially included in the maps of India to the Internet, prohibited by Indian law. According to the law, only the SOI is permitted to undertake ‘restricted’ category surveying and mapping, all other government, individual or private entities are not allowed to carry out such activities.
In reply to a question raised in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry Rajyavardhan Rathore said that the Survey of India looked in to the matter after it received complaints regarding display of incorrect map. The company was found to be displaying the incorrect map of the nation on its websites specific to China, Pakistan, India and more.
The Minister said, “On receipt of complaints regarding display of incorrect map of India by Google, Survey of India found that Google is displaying incorrect map of India on its different websites namely www.google.co.in (India), www.ditu.google.co.ch (China), www.google.pk (Pakistan) and www.google.org (General).”
He further said that displaying incorrect map of India is an offence under section 69-A of Information Technology Act, 2000.
“Nodal officer has been appointed by the Survey of India to deal with such complaints,” the Minister added.
Google was also slammed by Surveyor General of India Swarna Subba Rao back in August for gathering classified information through the Mapathon 2013 competition.
This is so incredibly silly. Indian law already foolishly forbids any map from depicting the reality of kashmir being a disputed territory. Now they are trying to impose their laws on the rest of the world?! And they JUST a realized that Google maps have been depicting ground realities? That’s some excellent intelligence gathering!
Google displays the inaccurate indian official map on its indian websites. It has ZERO obligation to impose India’s foolish laws the rest of the world. Even China and Pakistan aren’t as foolish as India when it comes to this mapping issue.