Data Openness
One of the biggest impediments today to the realization of
goals of the VTP - a live, fully-interactive
representation of the entire world as a source of education and insight - is
that the geographic data is not available.
History
The history of geodata in the USA is in sharp contrast to the rest of the
world.
In the USA, there is a tradition at the level of the federal government that
most geodata is in the public domain. This makes perfect sense,
as taxpayer funds were used to produce the data, and all citizens stand to benefit
from its use. This includes topo maps, elevation data, aerial and satellite
images, and every other kind of spatial data.
In the rest of the world, generally speaking, geodata has been collected
only by the military and tightly-controlled government agencies. The data
is very often simply not available at all to the public or commercial
sector - or available only at great cost and severely limiting license restrictions.
For example, in the UK the Ordnance Survey is a quasi-governmental organization,
which charges several thousand pounds for the rights to use a small bit
of data, by one person, on a single computer, for a limited
time.
In the USA, at the state and city levels of government, the situation has
historically not been as enlightened as the federal government. Municipal
data is often produced without any exposure to the public, without any mechanism
for distribution, or otherwise restricted. Often there are both political
and technical barriers to sharing the data. Small government organizations
often lack the awareness to lower these barriers.
At the Federal level, there continues to be positive signs, from the Oct.
2009 Gov 2.0 summit:
"Public data" means online data in real time.
This is the mantra of Vivek Kundra, our nation's Chief Information Officer.
We must democratize data, he explains. People want the raw data. The public
can handle the data and create ideas and move government forward. Kundra sees
this current movement as the third economic revolution in our nation's history:
the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, and the transparency
of information revolution.
Situation Today
The impediments to data openness can be summarized by the human failings that
cause them: Greed, Ignorance, Short-sightedness, and Fear.
Greed - Greed can be a issue, especially in countries where quasi-governmental
groups operate without public accountability. Instead of treating geodata
as a public resource, it is hoarded by organizations that exists as monopolies,
bilking the public again and again for data that the public has already paid
for.
Ignorance and Short-sightedness - Many governments are largely oblivious
to the benefits of a publicly available geospatial infrastructure. They
are often stuck in modes of thinking that are decades or centuries out of date,
with no awareness of their own country's geospatial industry, or the myriad
benefits of open geodata for education, planning, and countless potential future
uses.
Fear - In many countries, the government allows mapping to be controlled
by the military, which often treats every single bit of geodata as a potential
secret that must be kept from that country's enemies - every road, building,
and tree! Since 2001/9/11, this attitude has also crept into parts of
the US government, with a handful of datasets pulled from the public in the
name of "fighting terrorism", although most of these fears have since
been shown to be baseless. The vast majority of geodata is useless to "terrorists",
while being of immense value to the public.
Resources - USA
Vital reading about US data availability before and after 9/11:
Al Leidner was involved in the GIS efforts of the city of New York for his
entire career, and led the heroic effort to assemble the city-wide GIS data
needed in the wake of 9/11. He retired in 2004, and gave an excellent
public presentation that summarizes the importance of open geodata. His
example is New York City, but it applies equally for the whole world:
- Al Leidner's presentation, Feb. 2004:
part1,
part2,
part3 (slides as pdf)
- He explains how old, inflexible mindsets oppose the future, whereas
the process of moving forward is a cultural evolution.
In May 2004, the Rand Corporation published
a report (sponsored by the
NGA) concerning the threat that publicly available geospatial data on US
Government web sites might pose in the hands of terrorists that "found
that less than one percent of the 629 federal data sets they studied appeared
to have notable value to would-be attackers":
There appears to be some progress: the FGDC has published some rational,
easily understood criteria for use in deciding what data should be available
to the public:
The
Open Data Consortium project
helps with the process:
Initiated and organized by GIS Consultant Bruce Joffe, with the purpose
of deriving and promoting a model policy for distributing governmental geospatial
data that can serve as a de-facto example to guide public agencies.
Affiliated with the GeoData Alliance.
They have produced a
Model Data Distribution Policy and written
10 Ways to Support GIS without selling data.
The NGA (aka DMA, NIMA) has a global vector dataset called VMAP1. Although
it is technically public domain as a product of the US Federal government, as
of 2006, the public still cannot get it.
Across the USA at the local/city level, data openness is being fought on
a case-by-case basis. Ref: Slashdot article on the town of Greenwich,
CT:
Court Rules GIS Data Can't Be Kept Secret.
The conflict between US federal and local agency approaches, with its consequences,
is well described in
Policy Review:
Blocking Public Geospatial Data Access Is Not Only a Homeland Security Risk,
Bradley Tombs, URISA Journal, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2005
Resources - International
As
of late 2004, there is an EU initiative called INSPIRE for establishing a common
spatial data infrastructure. However, it is deeply flawed in regards to
data openness, as explained on publicgeodata.org
Open Data at the Open Knowledge Foundation Network has more information
about European issues.
Freedata.ca was a site from 1999 to 2002, dedicated to the
issue of access to government geospatial data across Canada. While the
original site no longer exists, there is a mirror
on the VTP server. It is full of great explanation of the importance
of geodata, much of which applies to the whole world, not just Canada.
In particularly, see the excellent
Why should government spatial data be
free? Thankfully, Canada has made significant strides towards
openness since the site was published. See press coverage from 2007,
Canada drops licenses and adopts free model for map data. Hopefully,
Canada's experience can be helpful in other countries.
A
KPMG study on the Canadian Spatial Data Infrastructure in 2001, cited in
the INSPIRE page above, concluded that closed, restricted data has major economic
harm: "the consequences [of cost recovery] for businesses are higher
marginal costs, lower research and development investments and threatened marginal
products. The results for consumers are negative: higher prices and reduced
products and services. The overall economic consequences... are fewer jobs,
reduced economic output by almost $2.6 billion and a lower gross domestic product."
Further reference, citing the enormous advantages that the USA has over Europe
by nature of it more open federal data: Xavier Lopez,
The Dissemination
of Spatial Data, A North American-European Comparative Study on the Impact
of Government Information Policy.
At the global level, the only hope of a world-wide free vector dataset is
VMAP1, which is tightly held by NGA (see above, under Resources - USA).
In the UK, the national mapping agency Ordnance Survey (OS) is infamously
closed, expensive and extremely restrictive in the use of their data.
If you know of other advocacy organization trying to spread the word on open
geodata in other parts of the world,
please let us know.