LEGAL ISSUES RELATING TO CONVERGENCE OF IMAGING, POSITIONING AND SPATIAL DATABASES

摘要

There is a new scenario developing with the advances happening in the imaging, positioning and GIS domain. The power of "spatial information" is changing the way governance, commerce, development, resource management, environmental protection, security and a citizen's life is impacted - either in a direct or indirect manner. With the availability of the high resolution images (presently 1m, later even sub-meter resolutions) in the commercial domain, the divide between the "free access" civilian image requirements for supporting developmental activities and the "restricted" defense requirements for national security and image intelligence applications have vanished. With the availability of these images for any part of the globe, the outlook of many nation for dissemination and use of these images have had to adjust to these technological and market driven developments. Further, the high quality data gathered from space with different spatial, spectral and temporal characteristics are also enhancing domain of applications of Geospatial Intelligence and Information, which is produced using GIS technologies. A new dimension is emerging through advent of advanced satellite positioning systems for civilian applications providing interoperability, integrity, reliability and better positioning and location accuracies. Integration of the power of imaging with the precise positioning is fuelling the geo-spatial technologies and applications to reach dimensions and areas hitherto not imagined. The use of these "spatial data" promises greater efficiency in commerce, improvements in the environment, health, and safety, increased convenience for consumers, more citizen participation in governance, and improved public and private decision making in a general manner. What are the policy framework that will become relevant with the integration of these 3 spatial technologies? Legal regimes for protecting and managing compilations of digital spatial data, however, are underdeveloped and unclear. Ownership of digital spatial data, protection of privacy, access rights to spatial data compiled and held by governments, and information liability are still developing in the context of spatial data. However, they also pose several legal challenges relating to national security and integrity and access to data. This convergence is also driving establishment in different countries of National Spatial Data Infrastructures, which interlink and integrate various spatial databases managed by different agencies and generate information that can be accessed by the users in the government and private sector including general public and NGOs. This paper discusses several poloicy and legal issues in these areas - specifically in the context of technology management, spatial databases, applications etc and brings to fore the need for an international consensus on the policy regimes.