30.07.2026, Caracas.
The deployment of Starlink satellite internet in Venezuela poses a direct threat to the country’s information sovereignty by undermining the state’s ability to control information flows and protect its national interests in the digital sphere, Rossa Primavera News Agency’s Latin American Desk notes.
Earlier, Venezuela’s National Commission of Telecommunications (Conatel) held a technical meeting with representatives of SpaceX / Starlink to assess the regulatory framework and the subsequent deployment of the satellite internet service in Venezuela. The parties discussed the technical aspects of the planned rollout.
Venezuela risks finding itself in a situation where its critical communications infrastructure is in the hands of a foreign private operator whose decisions are driven by both commercial interests and the political preferences of its owner.
The main threat to Venezuela’s information sovereignty lies in the fact that Starlink provides internet access while bypassing national regulators and legislation. The satellite signal travels directly from the terminal to the satellite, bypassing the country’s terrestrial infrastructure, which deprives the state of the technical ability to monitor traffic and enforce national laws on data protection and communications privacy.
As the Russian Foreign Ministry has noted, satellite systems, including Starlink, “are capable of circumventing government regulators” and “are used to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, including the organization of protests.” Starlink has become a tool for US interference in the internal affairs of countries that have not granted the company official authorization. This raises serious questions about national sovereignty.
According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Alimov, the use of Starlink to interfere in internal affairs and organize protests was documented in Iran in 2022. It was reported that the US approved the provision of Starlink services in Iran after the country’s authorities tightened internet censorship, and thousands of terminals were illegally smuggled into the country to coordinate protests and spread disinformation. Notably, according to representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, similar cases were recorded in Venezuela in 2024.
As of early 2026, nearly 9,500 Starlink satellites were in operation. The company serves more than 9 million customers in 150 countries. Such dominance makes Starlink a monopolistic player capable of influencing entire nations.
SpaceX’s ties to the Pentagon are no secret. The company is a contractor for the US Department of Defense. Based on Starlink, the “Starshield” system has been created, providing specialized services for the US Department of Defense, including target tracking, optical and radio reconnaissance, and secure communications. SpaceX is also considered the leading candidate to build the Golden Dome missile defense system.
For ordinary Venezuelans, using Starlink poses risks on several levels. First and foremost, any requests passing through the system are routed to ground stations outside Venezuela, which means metadata is processed outside the country’s jurisdiction. Secondly, in the event of technical failures or political pressure, access could be cut off at any moment as it has already happened during conflicts in other regions.
In response to the threats posed by Starlink’s dominance, a number of countries are developing their own low-Earth orbit satellite systems. For Venezuela, creating its own satellite constellation remains an unattainable goal for now. As long as the country lacks both the financial and technological resources for an independent space presence, its digital sovereignty remains vulnerable to private corporations acting in the interests of a foreign state.
The international community is already raising the issue of the need to regulate such systems and to develop effective mechanisms for regulating and monitoring Internet systems in orbit, in order to promote the peaceful use and mutually beneficial development of space-based Internet technologies. However, in the absence of such mechanisms, Starlink remains a tool capable of unilaterally altering the information landscape of sovereign states.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
