Geographic Information Law

Several areas of law affect access to and use of geographic data, services, and technologies. Among the most pressing in importance to providers and users of geographic data and services include intellectual property (e.g., copyright, patent, and trade secret), freedom of information (i.e., freedom to access the records of government), and the information privacy of individuals. Support of a liberal policy concerning copyright law; support of the general principle of open and unrestricted access to government information, while accounting for security concerns; and support of autonomy for individuals to protect their own personal information privacy are often wise policy choices for nations. These policy approaches, when tempered with appropriate means for protecting other core interests, have been beneficial for nations adhering to them both in supporting fundamental democratic values and long-term economic advancement.

Judge Frank H. Easterbrook has made the argument that the best way to learn or develop the law in regard to a specific application domain is to study the law generally. He suggests that offering a course in “cyberlaw” may make as much sense as offering a course in “the law of the horse.” While there are many court cases and legal contracts dealing with horses, such as their sale, licensing, insuring, care, and racing, as well as injuries caused by or to horses, any course pulling together strands about horse conflicts and remedies from across the law is doomed to be shallow and miss unifying principles. The result is “crosssterilization” rather than “cross-fertilization” of ideas from different scholarly domains.

This short entry begins with the same caveat about geographic information law. Only by putting geographic information conflicts and potential conflicts in the context of broader legal principles may one understand the law applicable to geographic information, services, and technologies. Lawrence Lessig has made the counterargument that cyber law does indeed offer significant lessons that are able to inform the law more generally. Similarly, myriad experiences of increasing segments of the population in resolving day-to-day intellectual property, privacy, access, and liability concerns and conflicts should allow legal principles to be better honed and better advanced as our societal and individual expectations are transformed by location tracking tools and services that continue to rapidly expand, evolve, and become more accessible, pervasive, and used throughout society.