Privacy and Security of Geospatial Information

The concept of privacy of geospatial information pertains to the amount of personal or otherwise sensitive information that can be gleaned directly from the contents of one data source or indirectly when one source is analyzed in combination with other data sources. The concept of security of geospatial information relates to the set of rules or practices that enforces who can access what data, under what circumstances, and by what means. The collection, storage, dissemination, and use of geospatial information are often seen as requiring special care with regard to both of these concepts because these data are highly descriptive and often contain personally identifying or potentially damaging, dangerous, or sensitive information. The wide variety of types, uses, and content of geospatial information requires that notions of privacy and security cover a vast range of topics, including an individual's right to privacy and control over information about herself or himself, the rights of scientists to obtain and use information on behalf of the public good, and the rights of governments and organizations to guard information from public view. Each of these is a contentious issue that has been debated since well before the introduction of digital geospatial data. However, with the advent of modern geospatial information techniques and technologies, these issues continue to gain ardent and vocal supporters on all sides.

At the individual level, privacy and security are issues with regard to geospatial information because these data often contain personally identifiable information along with the characteristics of an individual or group. Because geospatial information consists of sensitive data, many people view the collection, storage, and dissemination of these data as infringing on an individual's right to privacy. Essentially, this issue is an extension of the personal privacy debate into the geospatial information domain. This has been driven for the most part by the ease with which geospatial information can be easily linked to other forms and sources of information about individual or group characteristics and processed rapidly in huge volumes with digital techniques. The application of geodemographics to product marketing has been at the center of the debate on the appropriateness of this practice since its inception. However, as geospatial data and services become increasingly available and mainstream, individuals and policymakers will be confronted with trade-offs between personal convenience and potential loss of personal privacy. Location-based services are a direct example of this because they have the potential to provide highly tailored, timely, and useful data and services but require that an individual surrender a portion of his or her personal privacy to facilitate the process.

Many in the public service and health sectors view the availability and use of geospatial data at the individual level as essential to public security, health, and welfare. Geospatial information containing personally identifiable information and characteristics is seen by many as key to stopping crime and reducing the burden of diseases on society. For instance, in some cases, criminals are required by law to register their places of residence within geospatial databases. The public availability of these data is thought by some to thwart potential future crimes by raising public awareness, thereby increasing the public's security at the potential cost of the criminal's personal privacy. Similarly, some federal and state laws mandate the collection and submission of personal-level health-related geospatial information to disease registries. Some argue that beneficial outcomes such as the identification of pandemics and the advancement of scientific knowledge about the cause, treatment, and prevention of diseases would not be possible without the collection of individual-level, highly private personal data at the level of completeness and accuracy that the mandates were designed to facilitate. However, not all patients are aware of these disease surveillance practices using geospatial information derived from their personal records, and it is likely that not all patients would have consented had they known.

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