Monday, March 31. 2008

GIS Data Sharing the Schuylkill County (PA) Way

The REPUBLICAN & Herald in Pottsville, PA describes how the county shares geographic data. At this point 30% of the 67 municipalities in the county have signed the sharing agreement. It's an interesting agreement, which includes this passage:

Sharing members may only use shared data to promote clearly definable, publicly supported objectives and functions. These objectives and functions include public planning purposes, public safety purposes and other functions typically performed by governmental agencies, implementation and interpretation of scientific research and tabular information, the generation of new data sets, and the creation of hard copy maps, charts and reports

One municipality recently signed on with a 6-1 council vote. The one vote against was worried about the data might "potentially infringe on people’s individual rights." Penn State professor Donna Peuquet said that was only a possibility if the data got into the public's hands.

Businesses can access the data, too, just via a licensing agreement, that I suspect requires a fee. The arrangement has been in place since 2004.