Metadata education suggestions and materials for:
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Ethical and Legal Issues related to GIS |
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A great advantage of data sharing between different government agencies and private users is saving costs by reducing duplicate data efforts. However, there is growing concern from data producers about being held accountable for data not be used correctly or in the intended way. Many datasets are now issued with disclaimers, although it is unclear whether such disclaimers would clear the providers of all liability.
Who is responsible for proper use of data? The data producer, or the data user? Does the data producer have to provide adequate information for the user to determine data's fitness for use, or is it the user's responsibility to explore and research the data before putting it to particular use? Several examples of liability in the courts are discussed in Geographer's Craft materials on Legal Issues Relating to GIS by Margaret Lynch and Kenneth Foote.
Metadata, though by no means a true "safeguard", does provide documentation and documentation in court always holds up better than no documentation. The current metadata content standard provides a place to describe "use limitations" (Identification Information section) as well as a liability statement (Distribution Information section). Information on data sources, accuracy, and development procedures (Data Quality section) is helpful not only to outside users trying to determine data's fitness-for-use, but can also provide documentation for the data producing organization which may be otherwise lost over time.
"Ethics include moral choices made by individuals in relation to the rest of the community, standards of acceptable behavior, and rules governing members of a profession. The broad issues relating to electronic information systems include control of and access to information, privacy and misuse of data, and international considerations. All of these extend to electronic networks, electronic databases, and, more specifically, to geographic information systems." (Lynch)
As in other new technological arenas, legal decisions lag behind technical developments. Ethics fill the gap as people negotiate how use of electronic information should proceed.
Related ethical questions:
Some related precedents
There are two sections in a standard metadata document where disclaimers are typically found:
Identification Information: Use Constraints
Distribution Information: Liability
See also the topic for good and bad examples of metadata for more information.
Ethical Issues In Electronic Information Systems Margaret Lynch (Geographer's Craft)
