Aerial photography is increasingly being put to use by Finnish authorities, the daily newspaper Turun Sanomat reports.

“During the summer, the Greek police searched for unlicensed swimming pools using the Google Earth satellite photography service. Over 16,000 pools were found.

The use of aerial photography in the search for unlicensed buildings is also becoming more common in Finland. According to the Turku Building Control Centre, aerial photographs make it possible to identify unlicensed outhouses, illegal construction sites and buildings dissembled without authorisation.

Building inspector Reima Ojala emphasises, however, that aerial photographs are mainly used for other purposes. He says public map services are not a building control application. Rather, the City of Turku uses the Webmap service that comes with aerial photographs made by a Finnish cartography company. The same bird’s-eye-view aerial photographs are also used in Microsoft’s map service Bing.

“Aerial photography helps decision makers in matters relating to the external renovations of buildings among other things. For example, if a property owner wants to paint their house red, one can quickly determine from the photographs whether the colour fits well with the colours of other buildings in the area,” permit specialist and architect Maria Paukio says.

The Ministry of the Environment believes the use of aerial and street photos will become more common in building control.”

TURUN SANOMAT 22 AUGUST