Liability Associated with Geographic Information

Contractual Liability

The contract for the provision of GI or GI services may often specify a quality standard, for example, a required scale, resolution, or accuracy to some national or international standard. How the contract is fulfilled, such as the type and quality of the media on which the data, product, or service is to be delivered or maintained; the time of delivery, including the updating of the data; and the privity or exclusivity of the data, may be other terms of the contract that a provider or vendor must fulfill in order to avoid being sued. Users of GI may become subject to legal obligations to the provider or vendor when they fail to comply with provisions of the contract or use the GI products beyond the intended limits outlined in the contract. Examples of usage beyond the contract include applying data that is known to be inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading and that might negatively impact persons or property. Also, using data incorrectly, whether intentionally or otherwise, creates a tort liability.

Tort Liability

A principle of tort law includes a duty of care, the breach of which leads to economic loss, damage to property and/or injury to persons. Tort liability, in the GI context, arises when the provider, vendor, or user of that data directly causes harm, economic loss, or damage to the property of others. Hence, making decisions based on inaccurate GI or providing error-riddled data may result in a tort liability. A failure to check and correct errors is considered to be negligent. Even the misuse of accurate GI may also be deemed a legal wrong when a loss or harm is the result. Other examples include a vendor representing the suitability of a data set or a user extending GI interpretations beyond what the data were capable of. Thus, legal liability risks are very high when using GI of unknown heritage, with unknown error ranges, poorly articulated standards of accuracy, and undefined attributes. Equally, one may be made responsible for simple mistakes of judgment, measurement, and interpretation.

Negligence as a Tort

The law of negligence protects people and their property from the careless behavior of other members of the community. To succeed in an action of negligence, there must be a duty owed, a failure to observe that duty, and damages or loss suffered as a result. Hence, a person is deemed negligent when that person falls below the standard of care that a “reasonable person” (for example, a prudent driver of a motor car, see below) placed in the same circumstances would have observed. An intentional misrepresentation of facts is deemed to be fraudulent, for which legal sanctions can be severe. An example where providers or vendors of GI products could be exposed to either type of liability is misrepresenting that the data provided are error free or are of a particular standard. When using data from global positioning systems (GPS), for example, the specification of the data standards, known biases, and error sources should be carefully documented.

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