Within hours of escalating military activity near Iran, the invisible architecture that powers modern commerce began to fail. More than 1,100 commercial ships in UAE, Qatari, Omani and Iranian waters experienced GPS disruption on February 28, according to shipping intelligence firm Windward. The disruption was immediate and severe: within 24 hours of the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, ships in the region's waters found their navigation systems had gone haywire, erroneously indicating that the vessels were at airports, a nuclear power plant and on Iranian land.
This was no minor glitch. The process involves militaries and affiliated groups intentionally broadcasting high-intensity radio signals in the same frequency bands used by navigation tools. Jamming results in the disruption of a vehicle's satellite-based positioning while spoofing leads to navigation systems reporting a false location. Lloyd's List Intelligence logged 1,735 GPS interference events affecting 655 vessels, each typically lasting three to four hours, between the start of the war and March 3. Daily incidents more than doubled, rising from 350 when the conflict began to 672 by March 2.
The strategic implications are significant. Jamming and spoofing slowed marine traffic moving through the Strait of Hormuz, a congested shipping lane that handles roughly 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas exports and where precise navigation is essential. The interference forced some tankers to reverse course or go dark, a state in which signals from a vessel's Automatic Identification System, or AIS, which automatically transmits key information about a vessel such as position, speed and rate of turn, are no longer broadcast or detected.
The civilian cost extends far beyond shipping. In Iran itself, basic services have crumbled. Ride-hailing apps, delivery platforms, and even basic mapping services like Google Maps and its Iranian equivalent Neshan have buckled under the interference. In many areas, especially around Tehran, users often spot themselves on the maps hundreds of kilometres away from their actual locations. One ride-hailing driver using Iran's Snapp app said he had been unable to work for weeks, with most of the time wasted wandering around aimlessly.
The damage to Iran's digital economy is measurable and growing. Neshan's daily active users had dropped by 15 per cent, while navigation activity on the app fell by 20 per cent. The Khabar Online news agency warned against the disruption of GPS, saying it caused collateral damage to the digital economy and public safety, including delays to emergency services.
What this signals to observers of modern conflict is a troubling reality: electronic warfare weaponry that was once viewed as a military tool now routinely damages civilian infrastructure, delivery services, and basic navigation for ordinary people. The number of global positioning system signal loss events affecting aircraft increased by 220 per cent between 2021 and 2024, according to the International Air Transport Association, suggesting the problem is expanding well beyond this conflict.
The vulnerability runs deeper than most appreciate. Many ships only listen to the original civilian GPS signal, which is called the L1 C/A signal, in use since the early 1990s for civilian use. Most ships are thus unable to rely on the BeiDou or Galileo systems if GPS is jammed. This technical limitation means that even alternative systems cannot help vessel operators caught in jamming zones.
The strategic fallout includes a geopolitical dimension. On June 23, 2025, Iran formally deactivated GPS reception nationwide, blocking American signals and completing the transition to BeiDou for both military and civilian applications. Iran's cooperation with Beijing was institutionalised under the 25-year Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership signed in 2021, granting Iran access to BeiDou's encrypted, high-precision military-grade signals. The disruptions have accelerated a strategic reorientation toward Chinese navigation infrastructure, a consequence that reaches far beyond the immediate conflict.
Defence sources familiar with the matter note that this pattern represents a concerning evolution in how modern militaries view civilian infrastructure. Electronic warfare has historically been a tool of tactical advantage. Now it increasingly creates widespread collateral damage to supply chains, emergency services, and the everyday operations that civilians depend on. The challenge for policymakers is distinguishing between the military necessity of degrading adversary capabilities and the mounting costs to neutral third parties and civilian services operating in contested zones.