PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
April 2016
247
SECTOR
INSIGHT:
.
org
E
ducation
and
P
rofessional
D
evelopment
in
the
G
eospatial
I
nformation
S
cience
and
T
echnology
C
ommunity
I
t is increasingly important for geospatial professionals
to have a broad set of skills in order to succeed in the
highly competitive global workforce. The required skill
set is evolving due to rapid technological developments
as well as the growing number of applications that are
using geospatial technology. A number of organizations
have developed programs to train geospatial professionals.
However, there is a knowledge gap that is not currently being
addressed. Spatial law, the legal and policy issues associated
with the collection, use, storage and distribution of geospatial
information, is a topic of increased importance within the
geospatial community that is lacking in most if not all
programs. An understanding of these legal issues is critical
for a geospatial professional and they will become even more
important as geospatial information is used in complex, real-
time decision-making for a growing range of applications.
Spatial law cuts across both technology platforms and legal
disciplines and includes issues such as privacy, intellectual
property rights, licensing, data quality and liability and
even in some cases national security. While the legal issues
themselves are not new, geospatial technology is raising
new complex questions that challenge the existing legal and
policy framework. For example, courts are now faced with
the challenge of determining what constitutes a reasonable
expectation of privacy in a public place given the relative
ease of collecting an individual’s movements using low cost
and ubiquitous geospatial technology.
1
Similarly, there are
a growing number of cases involving copyright and licensing
issues associated with geospatial information
2
. The courts’
decisions in these cases will have an impact on whether
organizations can use certain geospatial datasets and how
they should protect their intellectual property rights in
licensing and other arrangements.
An understanding of these legal issues is more important for
a geospatial professional than those in other communities
By Kevin D. Pomfret, Esq.
Why Geospatial Training Should Include Spatial Law
because a consistent legal framework with respect to
geospatial information does not currently exist. As a result,
there are often limited resources to find answers to the difficult
questions that arise. The situation is becoming more complex
because the trend is for geospatial products and services to
include geospatial information from numerous and diverse
sources (i.e. government, industry, the “crowd”) from across the
globe. Each source is often subject to differing legal regimes.
Moreover, as business models evolve, geospatial professionals
are becoming both data providers and data users. As a result, it
will be necessary to understand the various perspectives of the
issues. For example, no longer does a geospatial professional
work for an organization that simply provides geospatial data.
Instead he or she now works for an organization that provides
information products that are created using algorithms based
upon data from a variety of sources. Similarly, the growth
of the cloud has resulted in traditional software companies
offering a variety of “…as a services” (i.e. software as a service,
platform as a service, etc.) that host, process and aggregate
geospatial information for their customers.
For some time there have been programs that offer ethics
training for the geospatial professional. At one time, ethics
training was all that a geospatial professional likely needed
in order to do his or her job, as both the applications using
geospatial information, and the associated legal issues, were
bounded. However, as the number and type of applications
explodes, so does the legal uncertainty. For example, many
legal systems tend to provide greater protection to consumers
than to businesses. As a result, geospatial organizations
that offer products and services to consumers have to be
aware of these additional requirements and include them
into the workflow. Similarly, the rise in the use of geospatial
information for real-time decision-making raises the question
of who is liable if something goes wrong. (And how does an
organization protect itself?)
1
See e.g. U.S. v. Jones 132 S. Ct. 945 (2012)
2
See e.g.
, 2015WL 8648669
(N.D. Cal. Dec. 14, 2015); Drauglis v. Kappa Map Group (Civil
Action No. 14-1043 (ABJ)) Memorandum Opinion ( D.D. C.
August 18, 2015)
courts/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1:2014cv01043/166825/39/0.
pdf?ts=1439981758
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 82, No. 4, April 2016, pp. 247–248.
0099-1112/16/247–248
© 2016 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.82.4.247
