Presentation given to the UN-GGIM meeting in Doha in February, 2013

1. UN-GGIM and Legal/Policy Issues Related To
Geoinformation Management:
UN-GGIM Workshop
February 27, 2013
Kevin D. Pomfret
Centre for Spatial Law and Policy

2. 2
Geospatial Technology Is
Now Pervasive

3. Resulting In Rapid Growth in Many
Diverse Uses of Geoinformation
 Social Media
– Geotagged photos, tweets,
 Smart phone apps
 Business Intelligence
– Big Data
 Open Data
 Law Enforcement
 Smart Grid
 Tracking (assets, loved ones)
 Sustainable Development
 Infectious Disease
 Disaster Response
 Climate Change
 Protecting Endangered Species
 Smart Cities
 Insurance
 Intelligent Transportation
Systems
3

4. 4
And Creating A Global
Geospatial Community
Geospatial
Community
Data
Provider
Data
User
Data
User
Data
Provider
Data
Provider
Data Consumer

5. Geospatial Community
 An international ecosystem that collects/uses/stores/distributes
geoinformation.
– Cuts across technology platforms, industry groups and user
communities.
 All segments of community are contributing to community’s
growth
 Products and services increasingly being developed based
upon aggregation all types of data collected from diverse
sources.
 As a result policies/laws that impact the collection, impact,
and distribution in one segment will impact others.
– Traditional stovepipe approaches are obsolete/detrimental
5

6. Innovation Coming From All Segments
of Geospatial Community


6

7. Geoinformation Has
Many Benefits
 Cost-savings and Efficiencies
 Creates Jobs
 Improves Governance
 Provides Greater Transparency
 Vital in Addressing Critical Transnational
Issues
– Climate Change
– Pandemics
7

8. Has Happened Almost Overnight
Vatican City (2005)
8

9. Privacy Paradox
Vatican City (2013)
9

10. Policy/Legal Communities
Have Failed to Keep Up
 A number of policy/legal issues impact the
collection/use/storage/distribution of geoinformation
 Privacy
 Intellectual Property
 Licensing
 National Security
 Open Data
 Liability
 Policy/legal communities not keeping up with geospatial
technology, geoinformation, and the geospatial
community
10

11. Uncertainty Making It Increasingly Difficult to
Collect/Use/Store/Distribute Geoinformation
11

12. UN-GGIM’s Efforts In This Area
 Identified Legal and Policy Issues as one of the
main challenges facing geospatial community in
next ten years
 Engaged with the Centre for Spatial Law and
Policy to help identify issues
– White paper
 UN-GGIM and Centre conducted a joint survey
of member nations on impact of legal/policy
issues on collection/use/distribution
12

13. Privacy
13

14. Licensing/Data Sharing
14

15. Liability
15

16. Homeland/National Security
16

17. Impact of Bad
Laws/Policies/Regulations
 Increased costs and expenses to collect/use
 Longer roll-out times for new products/services
 Lawsuits may increase
 As a result . . .
 Geoinformation will be harder to collect/use/distribute
 Demand/market for geospatial products/services could
decrease
 This will impact the entire geospatial community
 How do you measure opportunity costs of not
collecting/using geoinformation?
17

18. 18
Potential Role of UN-GGIM
 Create regional/local forums that include all relevant
stakeholders to identify issues.
– Work within UN-GGIM regional system?
– Research impact of issues particular to each
nation/jurisdiction.
– Include legal communities/universities in the process
 Facilitate development of appropriate legal and
policy frameworks (as necessary)
– Local solutions but need to address global issues
– Work towards “legal interoperability” of geoinformation