APPENDIX
The three examples in the questionnaire that follows are merely illustrative of the types of ethical
conflict scenarios that might be constructed and used with focus groups. Other suggested
scenarios might cover such issues as providing insufficient data quality in the GIS database for
unforeseen uses and therefore causing unreliable decision making, causing unintentional harm to
others such as degradation in the quality of life or safety of others through the use of GIS, selling
the same GIS product to a second client without acknowledgment, protecting "sweat of the
brow" when a GIS database is not protected by copyright, allowing deception in the use of GIS
for analysis where the means are suspect but a socially desirable result occurs, and causing
intentional harm to others through the use of GIS. Scenarios addressing much broader social
issues might also be constructed; such as use of GIS as a tool in support of war or as a tool in
support of electronic democracy
Questionnaire
Instructions: Please read each of the following scenarios concerning the use of geographic
information systems. After each scenario, use your personal opinions to answer the questions.
Scenario 1: Professional Responsibility / Liability
A civil engineering firm has been hired to carry out a site feasibility assessment and
environmental analysis of a large land parcel. Developers would like to place a shopping center
on the site. Under the state''s professional licensing laws, civil engineers are held to a higher level
of care than ordinary citizens or business people.
In initiating the site assessment, the engineering firm acquired extensive amounts of digital data
on soil types, utility locations, ownership boundaries, ground elevations, zoning boundaries,
subsurface waste locations, and similar data from a commercial geographic database that has
been developed and maintained for the city''s geographic area. The engineering firm pays a
monthly fee for direct on-line access to the geographic information system (GIS). The
public/private corporation that developed and maintains the database generates large amounts of
income through its GIS user fees.
In their site feasibility study and subsequent design work, the civil engineering firm has relied
heavily on the GIS data supplied by the public/private corporation. However, individual civil
engineers have complained to their company management that adequate indicators of reliability
for much of the data in the GIS are lacking and therefore they are unable to determine the
correctness and completeness of much of the data in the GIS.
Because their feasibility study and design work relies heavily on the correctness of the data,
errors, blunders, or emissions in the data could cause economic losses or cause harm to people.
The engineers want the data supplier to share the responsibility for any potential future losses.
The data supplier states that it is merely supplying data in a convenient digital form and has no
involvement in its use. The engineering firm has the option of verifying through on-site
measurements, observations, and tests that the data is correct and complete. Therefore, the data
supplier should not be held responsible for any losses that might occur from imprecision,
blunders, or lack of completeness in the data.
Please provide your opinions or reasoning in the following spaces:
Party: Engineers
Conduct: Seeking shared responsibility with the data suppliers for future losses.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Party: Data Supplier
Conduct: Resisting acceptance of responsibility for future losses.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Statements, General Guidelines, or Principles you can suggest that might be useful in dealing
with this or similar conflicts in the future:
Scenario 2: Data Sales by Government/Ownership of Intellectual Property
A few years a go a local community developed a town-wide land information system financed by
taxpayers. Town administrators have been using the system for street and utility maintenance,
zoning and building code enforcement, tax assessment, planning, routing of town services,
inventorying of city buildings and real estate, and using it for various land use analysis purposes.
The town soon discovered that the database was useful for a wide variety of private uses as well
as public. Although the system was originally justified on cost savings to the town through
increased efficiencies in agency operations, the town is now charging user fees for on-line access
to the GIS and is selling products produced from the database to recover the costs of systems
acquisition, maintenance, upgrades, and expansion. In fact, the fees are generating a substantial
income that far exceeds the original costs and the continuing expenses.
Subdivision plats prepared by surveyors that were submitted over many years to the town for
approval were incorporated into the database using a digitizing process. Although the town has
transcribed the lot line dimensions from the original plats correctly, items such as the dates of
field surveys, map legends, plat notes detailing limitations on the use of the survey work, and
notes stating the standards that the survey work was intended to meet have not been incorporated
in the land information system database.
In the vast majority of cases, surveyors are the copyright holders of the publicly filed plats and
other maps that were used to develop the boundary and cadastral information now contained in
the GIS. These surveyors argue that the maps and plats represent professional opinions of the
surveyors (not just factual information) and that the municipality should have sought their
permission prior to copying information from the maps and plats authored by them. The
surveyors argue that their liability exposure to third party users is now likely to be greater as a
result of the town''s GIS development and they argue that they should be receiving a substantial
percentage of all GIS fees being collected by the town.
The town feels that most of the information they copied into the GIS from the publicly filed
survey plats was factual in nature and there was little unique authorship by the surveyors in the
arrangement or selection of the information on the survey plats. They feel the general public
should gain the full benefit of the fees they are collecting and the town refuses to pass any
percentage of the fees to the concerned surveyors.
Please provide your opinions or reasoning in the following spaces:
Party: Town
Conduct: Charging user fees for on-line access to the GIS and selling products produced from
the GIS database.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Party: Town
Conduct: Refusal to recognize an intellectual property ownership right by surveyors in the
documents that were copied to create the GIS database.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Party: Surveyors
Conduct: Requesting compensation for copying of publicly filed survey plats and maps.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Statements, General Guidelines, or Principles you can suggest that might be useful in dealing
with this or similar conflicts in the future:
Scenario 3: Privacy
In order to cash checks at large regional grocery store chains and discount store chains,
customers must fill out an application that requests their name, address, phone number, and
driver''s license number. The application explicitly states that information about the applicant
may be transferred to other parties if required by law or the management determines the transfer
to be appropriate.
For the past year, all the major chain stores in a local region have been keeping track with their
check-out scanners of the complete purchase histories of all of their customers who have
purchased goods by check or credit card. In recent weeks, the businesses have come together to
cross-match their files for their mutual benefit. In order to increase the value of the customer
files for marketing purposes, the stores have already cross-matched each purchase history with
the height and weight of each individual (acquired from their driver''s license file), the scanned
photos of many of the customers (acquired from the photos required for membership in some of
the discount store clubs), and the social security numbers of almost all the customers (readily
obtainable from other commercial databases.)
A local engineering firm with considerable GIS expertise has been hired to cross-match these
files with additional information accessible through government public records. The intent of the
consortium is to sell access to the resultant files to other third parties who may have a business
interest in them.
Specifically, the engineering firm has cross-matched the current customer profiles and addresses
with taxing, assessment, and facilities records for each household, provided detailed cadastral
information on the parcel (including the boundaries of each parcel and its current owner), and
cross-matched the ZIP+4 designation for each household (along with the affiliated census data at
the block level). In delivering its final datasets to the consortium of chain store businesses, the
engineering firm strongly urged that information in the files that was tied or might be tied to
specific individuals should be transferred to third parties only with the explicit consent of the
individuals identified.
Please provide your opinions or reasoning in the following spaces:
Party: Chain Store Merchants
Conduct: Developing a database that allows merchants to construct detailed personal and
household profiles for each customer.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Party: Chain Store Merchants
Conduct: Selling detailed data on their customers to third parties.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Party: Engineering Firm
Conduct: Cross-matching information from government files to allow more detailed profiling of
individuals.
conduct is conduct is conduct is other than
unethical ____ illegal ____ unethical or illegal ____
Factors or reasoning relevant to your opinion:
Statements, General Guidelines, or Principles you can suggest that might be useful in dealing
with this or similar conflicts in the future:
Scenario 4. Copyright / Sweat of the Brow
(scenario yet to be provided)
Scenario 5. Selling Same GIS Product to Second Client without Acknowledgement (p. 92)
(scenario yet to be provided)
Scenario 6. Deception in the Use of GIS for Analysis (intentional use of inappropriate
methods, means are suspect but not end result, i.e. socially desirable result occurs)
(scenario yet to be provided)
Scenario 7. Data Quality Insufficient for Unforeseen Uses (unreliable decisionmaking
occurs)
(scenario yet to be provided)
Scenario 8. Unintentional Harm to Others through the Use of GIS (degradation of quality
of life or safety of others)
(scenario yet to be provided)
Scenario 9. Intentional Harm to Others through the Use of GIS (i.e. evil outcomes)
(scenario yet to be provided)
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Background Information
Please answer the following questions about yourself.
1. Which of the following best describes your relation to the use or development of GIS?
__ direct user
__ indirect user
__ educator
__ consultant
__ GIS vendor
__ other: _______________
2. Which of the following best describes the function of your employer or business?
__ government (__ town/city, __ county, __state, __federal, __ other)
__ private sector business
__ education
__ other: _______________
3. Which of the following best describes the primary activities you personally are involved with
on a day to day basis.
__ administration/management
__ computer processing
__ planning
__ public works maintenance
__ engineering
__ property assessment
__ natural resource management
__ research
__ education
4. etc.