Ethical and Legal Issues in Electronic Information Systems
GIS and Ethical Issues
• GIS are revolutionizing the use and spread of information and create ethical dilemmas
• Users of GIS (and other information systems) must face new responsibilities regarding the use of electronic information
• Information is a source of power and a key to prosperity to those with access
• Electronic systems can, and do, reach into all levels of government, workplace and private lives – such that new ethical and legal decisions are necessary to balance the needs and rights of all
GIS and Ethical Issues
• In general, several essays on the nature and possibilities of ethical issues and networks have established a standard of conduct.
• Networks stretch across societies with different values and traditions – the computers forming the network allow users to do things they could not do before – and do it anonymously!
• Standards of acceptable behavior in a network includes simple standard of civility and common sense

GIS and Ethical Issues
• One of the major issues in electronic networks is the question of access – who has it and what kinds of information will be available
• Countering the questions of rights of access are questions about privacy, as the amount of personal information available through electronic information is staggering – from medical histories to credit histories to marital status and so forth
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Privacy and Electronic Networks
• The degree of control that people have over what kinds of personal information other people can find out (and distribute) has dropped with the advent of electronic databases and network communications
– Hackers and System operators alike have access to root directories and may be able to ‘look’ into private accounts (e-mail, for instance) – Hackers are illegal snoopers, while system operators are authorized, usually by a server)
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Challenges to privacy by Companies – Selling Information
– Selling information is highly lucrative, and with so much information available through networks, companies have begun to profit from the data they already hold for their purposes.
– On-line services, such as Prodigy, have access to Social Security numbers, credit card numbers and even entire profiles on their subscribers
– Legally, these types of companies can sell any and all of their databases to any one
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Challenges to Companies – Monitoring Employees
– Employers can legally tap into e-mail accounts and other networks communications, look through employee electronic files, and other forms of electronic monitoring
• Challenges to Government – Access to databases
– Federal and state agencies hold and verify enormous amounts of information about individuals, which they share with each other and the private sector
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Challenges to privacy by Government – Search and Seizure Laws
– In addition to sharing information with other agencies and the private sector, the government (specifically, FBI) is allowed to seize entire computer systems for the purpose of searching through files for criminal activity.
– A search warrant is required for information that is less than six months old, while a simple subpoena is all that is necessary for information older than six months..
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Electronic Database – establishing an electronic database requires a significant investment of both time and money (capital).
• The design of the database determines the best use of the raw data.
• Electronic databases also change the way that information is used as more information can be stored with less effort, time and money into an established database.
• Electronic databases then acquire even more value with the new uses possible and holders of the database might be tempted to sell them – causing conflicts of ownership and privacy rights.
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Data Mosaics – a most powerful feature of the electronic database is the ability to link enormous types and quantities of information.
• The information does not necessarily need to b stored in one place – but can be “called-up” electronically from other computers as long as the information is within compatible formats. – this is a Data Mosaic: sharing of data within computers systems
• What kind of consequences are possible using a Data Mosaic?
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Problem # 1 – Logistics of managing the required security of a data set with providing access to it.
• Problem #2 – Propagation of errors – as more personal data is available in electronic datasets, any errors can be passed far beyond the site of first occurrence (a data entry error) and may almost be impossible to correct
• Problem # 3 – Propensity Profiles – Database creators attempt to ‘organize’ people/objects within a dataset by characteristics – which may or may not suggest something else about the people/objects – a marketing scheme, if you will.
– What if these ‘profiles’ are used (or mis-used) to target certain groups of people – Basic and Constitutional rights may be violated as profiles are ‘conjured’ out of substitute information
GIS and Ethical Issues
• GIS can be used to create data mosaics and, therefore, may share some of the potential problems of other ‘shareware’ database systems.
• However, GIS have other specific capabilities and characteristics, in addition to the data mosaic.
• GIS can perform spatial analysis and create entirely new sets of data – this new information is becoming increasingly attractive and valuable to a wide range of businesses and government agencies.
• Many GIS are operated by local, state and federal agencies and conflicts over rights to access are inevitable.
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Three types of conflict may exist within the framework of a local, state or federal agency and GIS
• Conflicting Responsibilities
– Government agencies share a GIS in order to share costs, reduce redundancies and make the overall system more useful
– The balancing act is between sharing the information and preserving the integrity of any private records they hold
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Access to Public Information vs. Privacy
– A balance between effective access and preservation of privacy is even a greater problem as demands of private citizens enter the information ‘fray’.
– Government agencies are public-owned and required by law to give open access to their information to assure accountability and prevent corruption (Freedom of Information Act, 1966).
– Preserving the privacy of citizens is increasingly difficult as the ability to create new data out of old information increases with the use of a GIS – private information may be indirectly revealed.

GIS and Ethical Issues
• Access to Public Information and New Demands on Public Agencies
• GIS operated by governmental agencies are powerful with enormous amounts of information - the nature and demand for access to public records in public GIS is increasingly for purposes of private profit.
• As businesses find the information in a public GIS to be valuable – they demand more access based on the FOIA statutes
GIS and Ethical Issues
• Many private companies make their living from ‘value-added’ information – manipulating, arranging, organizing and analyzing data – that is more valuable for specific kinds of users.
• If this same ‘value-added’ information is now available from government GIS – is this dissemination unfair and in conflict with their private interests?
• The FOIA, created long before the electronic revolution, make be unable to cop with electronic information issues.

GIS and Ethical Issues
• Some of the problems facing agencies include:
• What’s a public record? Government agencies face the problem of what must be made accessible. Additionally, if the information is only accessible with certain software – is the agency responsible for providing the software, too?
• What’s a reasonable search? - Only “reasonable searches” are required by the FOIA – but, in an electronic database, what constitutes a reasonable search? The definition is broader with electronic efficiencies, but by how much?
• Paper Records or Digital Format? – How can an agency legislate which records will be provided on paper and which provided by digital format?
GIS and Legal Issues
• Information Systems and Copyright – fluidity of information on networks causes confusion regarding copyrights and intellectual property rights as they apply to electronic files.
• As networks grow larger, attracting a broader range of users, the ease of distribution of electronic files and the nature of some electronic information can cause problems within existing copyright laws – either the law does not specifically address these issues or the law is too easily subverted as files can be easily copied and transferred electronically.
GIS and Legal Issues
• Existing U.S. copyright laws, while not specifically addressed to electronic files, does provide guidelines:
– Copyrights protect original works of authorship (literary,musical, dramatic, graphic, audiovisual, etc.) This covers both published and unpublished works.
– Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, performance or display of works with copyrights is expressly forbidden by law
– Owning a copy of a work does not give distribution, reproduction, performance or displaying rights.

GIS and Legal Issues
• A copyright notice is not required for protection
• Copyrights do not apply to titles, phrases, names, slogans, ingredient lists or works with unoriginal information
• Copyrights do not extend to ideas, procedures, methods, systems, concepts, principles, or devices – they must be patented for protection
• Public domain works include works of authors dead at least 50 years, federal agency works, and those granted public domain by original author
• Complete international copyright protection does not exist – laws of individual nations supercede
GIS and Legal Issues
• The FOIA requires public agencies to open their records to private citizens, except for such considerations such as national security and privacy rights of citizens.
• Two fundamental questions have arisen with the onset of the rapid growth in information technology:
– How much public information do private citizens have the right to demand; and
– Can government agencies recover costs by selling public data?
GIS and Legal Issues
• GIS is essential for coping with the large amounts of electronic information government agencies collect, generate and control, however, the costs of establishing a GIS is very expensive.
• Selling information, then, is a way for agencies to resolve these expenses – yet – this solution conflicts with accountability standards as citizens, theoretically, have the right of free access of public agency information.
GIS and Legal Issues
• Additionally, the information from government agencies may have an economic value to private individuals and companies, who, in turn, may generate profit from the information.
• Agencies, then, have three basic choices:
– Bearing the full cost of information generation and distribution
– Recovering distribution costs
– Generating income by charging more for information than the entire GIS costs the agency
GIS and Legal Issues
• Choice # 1 – preserves the principles of open access, but agencies will have extraordinary costs and must spend limited resources in distributing the requested information
• Choice # 2 – may be a reasonable compromise, however, does it favor moneyed users and discriminate against users with limited financial resources?
• Choice # 3 – Government GIS are seen as a source of revenue – but the legality of the costs is still debatable. Theoretically, the requested information is already ‘owned’ by the private citizens who demand it – why should they pay for something they already own?
GIS and Legal Issues
• Liability – GIS professionals are becoming more aware that they themselves may be held legally accountable for the accuracy and reliability of the information stored in their databases that is either sold or issued to the public.
– If harm is cause or economic loss sustained by a mistake made in a GIS dataset (or a mistake not detected or corrected in a GIS dataset) – the GIS personnel may end up in court.
• Public policy decisions
• Decisions made using GIS information, even if the information was used for purposes it was not intended for
GIS and Legal Issues
• Errors or uncorrected mistakes
– When people depend on a map of chart for accurate representations of the real world – disastrous results can happen when simple mistakes are not corrected
– Two cases:
• Reminga vs. United States: federal maps inaccurately depicted the location of a broadcasting tower and the government was held accountable for an airplane crash
• Indian Towing Co. vs. United States: Federal charts indicated a lighthouse no longer maintained by government and the government was accountable for the loss of a ship

GIS and Legal Issues
• Representation of Error-free data
– Errors in geographic data may arise in unanticipated ways – inadvertently misrepresenting reality, while giving the impression of error-free data
– Aetna Casualty and Surety Co. vs. Jeppeson and Co. – the aeronautical chart published by Jeppeson and Co had misled the flight crew in a fatal crash – mapping out an instrument approach using correct data from the FAA but with a fatal error - Scale! Two charts, drawn from the FAA data, were represented as having the same scale – but they did not!
GIS and Legal Issues
• Flawed Policy
– Faulty GIS data or analysis may lead to poorly designed regulations.
– Incorrect data can skew results of an analysis
– Correct data but poor reasoning or design of a GIS may lead agencies to establish flawed regulations.
– Nollan vs. California Coastal Commission – found that the CCC couldn’t justify a requirement for public easements to the beach by private property owners. Regulations restricting an owner’s use of land are considered a “taking” of private land. The case centered on an area of land use regulation whereby government agencies establish conservation policies. GIS analysis of accurate data as challenged, along with the policies created based on the analysis
GIS and Legal Issues
• Unintended and inappropriate use of GIS data
– Maps are designed for specific uses – projections, scale and so forth make individual maps appropriate for particular uses, only.
– Zinn vs. State – a USGS map was used by a state agency to define property lines along a lake. Land below the “Ordinary High Water Mark” of all lakes in the state were designated “public property”. In using the USGS map, however, the state incorrectly claimed private land because the USGS map was not designed for determining fine details, like property lines.
GIS and Legal Issues
• GIS data as

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