Onsrud, H.J., The Role of Law in Impeding and Facilitating the Sharing of Geographic Information, in: Onsrud, H.J. and G. Rushton, eds., Sharing Geographic Information (Rutgers: CUPR Press) 292-306, 1995

Role of Law in Impeding and Facilitating the Sharing of Geographic Information

Harlan J. Onsrud

Department of Surveying Engineering and

National Center for Geographic Information Analysis

107 Boardman Hall

University of Maine

Orono, ME 04469

Abstract

The widespread use and accessibility of geographic data sets in combination with the capabilities provided by other communication technologies are raising numerous public concerns. Among these include the effects of such technologies on personal privacy, access to the information used by government, work product protection laws, legal liability for errors and inadequacies in GIS products and services, and concerns that information infrastructure arrangements will contribute to the widening of socio-economic gaps among members of the social system. As developers and purveyors of a powerful social resource, the GIS discipline needs to identify the consequences of use of the technology and consider those consequences in the light of their general social effects. The policy implications of different geographic information sharing arrangements need to be explored and the legal conditions and constraints that will affect the ability to share geographic data widely among divergent groups of potential users of GIS need to be fully discussed.