GIS and Legal Issues
• GIS data as “Evidence” (from Harlan J. Onsrud, “Evidence Generated from GIS”; GIS Law 1(3) (1993); pp 1-8
• Decisions are made using GIS – whether it is to place new power lines, lay down or repair sewer lines, create schools, parks or forecast environmental consequences from planned land uses.
• Legal conflicts, inevitably, will arise from these decisions and the GIS used to make them
• One or all parties in the conflict may wish to bring data or analysis from a GIS into court as evidence in support of a case
GIS and Legal Issues
• Can GIS data be used as evidence?
– GIS data may be necessary to a legal case, but it does not meet the legal requirements or standards of acceptable evidence.
– Digital form evidence encounters problems when used in a court since computer systems introduce the possibilities of errors, inaccuracies (both in software and hardware, and flawed modeling concepts.
– Digital information can be altered more easily and with less trace than paper documents.
GIS and Legal Issues
• Problems faced by GIS data in the courts
• If GIS cannot be used to provide legal cases it will lose much of its value
• GIS, unless it falls under certain business or public record exclusions, is treated as hearsay evidence (statements made outside of sworn testimony) and cannot be submitted as evidence.
• Even if the GIS evidence is submitted and accepted, the security of the hardware system or the efficacy and supervision of the data input must be verified
• The parties must also prove that the data submitted was not altered
GIS and Legal Issues
• Technological Solutions to Legal Problems
• While these problems have not prevented GIS from being used as evidence, unanticipated difficulties have arisen.
• Solutions, to date, have been in the realm of the legal world – however – future solutions may lie in the technological world
• Technical markers automatically placed on alterations to a dataset could improve the reliability of a data set

Onsrud, H.J., Identifying Unethical Conduct in the Use of GIS, Cartography and Geographic
Information Systems, 1995, 22(1), 90-97
Identifying Unethical Conduct in the Use of GIS
Harlan J. Onsrud
National Center for Geographic Information Analysis (NCGIA)
University of Maine
Orono, Maine 04469
ABSTRACT
It often has been argued that no technology is value-neutral. Therefore, one extension of the
argument suggests that the power of geographic information system (GIS) technologies should
be used for beneficial purposes. GIS should be used to enhance the quality of life, promote
equity in access to knowledge for all members of society, reduce socio-economic gaps between
members of the social system (or at least not widen them), and other "good purposes." The
limitations of such reasoning and goals become readily evident when one attempts to apply such
principles in everyday practice. Numerous gray areas exist in the use of GIS and determining
what constitutes a beneficial versus a detrimental consequence is a value laden judgment. In
many instances, "fair, just, and equitable" conduct and results are not obvious. They often
depend on the perspectives of those affected by use of the information system.
This paper begins by distinguishing illegal conduct from unethical conduct. It then presents a
method for gauging whether conduct in the use of GIS will be considered unethical by those
affected by its use and to what extent.
INTRODUCTION
Ethical conduct is often defined as that behavior desired by society that is above and beyond the
minimum standards of behavior established by law. As such, this additional desired conduct is
unenforceable in the courts. It is conduct to which we wish everyone would aspire for our mutual
benefit. However, it is also conduct that for one reason or another we cannot mandate or do not
wish to mandate through legislative enactments. For instance, a general policy exists in the law
that legislation should not be enacted that is very difficult or highly impractical to enforce. A law
requiring each of us "to be nice" would invite flaunting of the legal system as a whole and
therefore such laws are avoided in order to preserve the sanctity of the system. Similarly,
legislation "dare not get too far away from popular attitudes, habits, and ideals in the various
situations that keep coming up in everyday life" (Mermin 1978, p.13). To do so would only
invite the breach of such laws. Therefore, much conduct that might be deemed unfair or unjust
by a large majority of society is not banned by law. Banning such conduct would either
adversely impact the operation of our legal system as a whole or would impinge too much on
other valued freedoms.
The large rounded rectangle in Figure 1 is intended to represent all societal conduct. Note in the
figure that the largest body of societal conduct is legal conduct with no public judgment as to
whether the conduct is ethical or not. A certain segment of possible conduct has been carved out
by our laws as being illegal, represented by the circle. Persons acting illegally are, of course,
subject to sanctions imposed by our judicial system.
We also may classify a subset of societal conduct as being either ethical or unethical, represented
by the small rectangles to the left and right of line AB respectively in Figure 1. As illustrated,
most ethical conduct is also legal. However, certain conduct considered ethical by an individual
may abridge our societal laws. For instance, an individual might break the law to prevent a far
greater societal law from being broken (e.g., breaking the speed limit to prevent a murder).
Euthanasia is another example of illegal conduct that may fall in this category

Much unethical conduct is also illegal. However, a significant body of conduct exists that is
unethical yet legal. Such conduct is represented by the darker hatched area of Figure 1. This
paper is most concerned with identifying this specific body of conduct.
Though somewhat nebulous itself, the line between legal and illegal conduct (the circle) is a
much easier line to define than the line between ethical and unethical conduct (line AB). In
determining whether an anticipated act is legal or not, we may resort to written statutory and case
law. In determining whether an anticipated act will be considered ethical by our peers and
society, we have only general principles to draw upon.
PROFESSIONAL CODES OF CONDUCT
In determining whether an action will be considered unethical, unfair or unjust by a group in
society or by society as a whole, we normally try to anticipate whether a consensus or large
majority opinion of the group would hold the action to be unethical. Because it is seldom
practical to take opinion polls before taking most actions, business associations and professional
societies often develop codes of conduct to act as general guidelines of conduct for their
members.
The GIS community is so new that codes of conduct have not yet been developed or offered
expressly for its practitioners. However, codes of conduct have been developed for many closely
related groups. For instance, codes of conduct that may be relevant for the GIS community to
consider include those prepared by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the Data
Processing Management Association (DPMA), the Institute for Certification of Computer
Professionals (ICCP), and those organizations that regularly sponsor conferences on GIS issues.
Also germane are the more generalized tenets of practice relative to technology and moral
responsibility contained in such documents as the Mount Carmel Declaration (Kranzberg 1980,
p. 227).
Usually codes of conduct prepared by professional or business organizations are intended as
goals to aspire to. The principles outlined are not meant to be strictly enforceable. Typically,
only the most blatant violations of codes of conduct (that is, those that are also illegal) might
result in some sort of sanctioning by the group, such as suspension of membership or expulsion
from the group.
Statutes and administrative regulations, however, carry the force of law. Therefore, codes of
conduct adopted by state licensing boards would be enforceable at law except for the fact that the
conduct described in them is often intentionally couched in such general terms that the
provisions are impossible to enforce in practice. Thus, even under licensing regulation scenarios,
the intent of codes of conduct typically is not to define legal versus illegal conduct but to provide
goals to which members of the profession should aspire in their conduct. Such codes are placed
in writing with the full realization that most professionals will not be able to rigorously or always
adhere to the goals and that the provisions will not be strictly enforceable.
If not generally enforceable, of what benefit are professional codes of conduct? In short, they let
individuals in the discipline know what is expected of them by the rest of the profession and by
the public. Codes of conduct put us on notice. Although we are unlikely to incur formal
sanctioning if we blatantly step over the bounds of ethical conduct, loss of respect with the rest
of the discipline is likely to result in informal sanctioning. Loss of economic and personal well
being through imposition of a "bad reputation" by the rest of the community may be no less
severe than if imposed by formal sanctions.
One of the problems with professional and business society codes of ethics is that they are most
often developed by consulting the opinions of members of the group or discipline without also
consulting opinions of the consuming public or the public at large. As a result, there is typically
present in such codes an emphasis on fair dealings among members of the group and a bias
towards members of the discipline over members of the public. For instance, conduct in dealing
with clients that many members of a professional group consider to be "smart business practices"
may be considered by the consuming public to be substantially lacking in treating them fairly or
in protecting their interests. Therefore, codes of ethical conduct should be prepared by gauging
opinions of both the discipline and at least that sector of the public likely to be dealing with the
products and services provided by the discipline.
ETHICS IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF GIS
Assuming that one wants to develop a code of ethical conduct for those involved in the
development and use of GIS, one obvious place to start is to consult ethical conduct guidelines
created previously by closely affiliated disciplines. For instance, the codes of the organizations
mentioned previously might offer good models for a GIS membership organization to use in
initiating its own code of conduct. However, codes of conduct are likely to have very little
impact if they are mere paper exercises. In addition, it is not so much that a code of conduct is
needed but that simple information is needed on what the community believes is ethical or
unethical conduct relative to the use of GIS.
To gather community beliefs, the following three steps are recommended:
1. Describe conduct situations currently occurring or likely to occur in GIS practice that may
give rise to ethical decision-making.
2. Obtain opinions from members of the discipline on the appropriateness of the conduct
described.
3. Obtain opinions from members of the public on the appropriateness of the conduct described.
Knowing what the community believes in regard to specific scenarios and actions is valuable in
itself. In addition, generalizable rules of ethical conduct that might be derived from such fact
scenarios, if well drafted, should have greater relevance and constancy over time than rules
constructed from mere armchair reflection.
In attempting to draft codes of ethical conduct, it is well to keep in mind that opinions will
change over time. Majority and consensus opinions of groups change as technology, politics, and
other social forces alter the collective beliefs of individuals and change methods of business
practice. Thus, collective public and professional opinions relative to the appropriateness of
specific conduct in specific situations will often change over time. However, opinions regarding
general principles of ethical behavior are likely to change at a much slower rate.
In an attempt to determine whether certain conduct currently occurring within the GIS
community generally is considered by others to involve ethical decision making, several
hypothetical fact situations have been developed and are attached to this article. The form of the
questionnaire and the scenario statements are modeled after forms and scenarios presented in
Ethical Conflicts in Information and Computer Science, Technology, and Business (Parker,
Swope, and Baker 1993). The resulting questionnaire is intended to be used with focus groups of
discipline experts and with focus groups of members of the public who might be involved in
consuming GIS products or services. The questionnaire is merely illustrative at this point and
numerous other hypothetical scenarios should be added prior to its actual use with focus groups.
Any principles derived through the focus group process should then be tested on a much wider
audience.
Developing ethical guidelines for the GIS community is very problematic due to the amorphous
nature and newness of the community. Development should be cautious. The approach proposed
is similar to that recently used to update the ACM''s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
(Anderson, et. al. 1992, Anderson, et. al. 1993). Any consideration of a code of ethics for GIS
developers and practitioners must begin with similar expansive data gathering and analysis.
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
The ethicist and moralist probably would argue that ethical decisions and general ethical codes of
conduct should not be developed through the taking of opinion polls. Rather, gathering data on
the moral consensus of a matter is a step along the way in arriving at a solution. It is ethical
theory and moral insights that should be primarily depended on in arriving at solutions. I agree
with this perspective to the extent that once a code has been initiated through observation and
analysis of current practice contexts and moral conditions, code and practice should be evaluated
and honed by continuously reassessing their conformance with theory.
To explore this concept further we need to define several terms in the manner in which
philosophers would define them. Ethics has been defined by philosophers as &am

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