BJP MP wants Google booked for violating India's mapping regulations

The government should book Google for "violating" India's defence regulations on maps and force the company to surrender its "illegally stored" data to the Surveyor General of India, BJP MP Tarun Vijay says.

"Getting every inch of India mapped by illegally inviting people to send the data for their US-based servers presents a grave danger to the security and poses a challenge to the Indian state," Tarun Vijay told IANS in an interview concerning Google's Mapathon 2013 exercise.

Mapathon 2013 which started last month and culminates on March 25 is an India-wide mapping contest by Google with prizes for top mappers. Google Maps users from all over the country have been invited "to help create better maps for India" by adding knowledge of their neighbourhoods through the Google map maker.

The BJP MP said Google had broken the statutory norms by running a Map India campaign without permission.

"The Mapathon activity by Google Maps is in contravention of the National Map Policy and map restriction policies issued by the defence ministry from time to time," he said.

Tarun Vijay said that the Surveyor General of India (SOI) alone was mandated to undertake "restricted" category survey, mapping and disseminating India's topographic map database.

The MP, who is also a BJP spokesperson, said the defence ministry has identified and prepared a list of civil and military Vital Areas (VAs)/Vital Points (VPs) in consultation with the home ministry and this was regularly updated.

"From the national security point of view, these VAs/VPs cannot be shown in the maps/data published in the public domain as Google is doing," he said.

Calling for tough action, he said Google should be taught to respect India's laws.