Ordnance Survey locks down government spatial data

Almost all government information revolves around two fundamental data types; people and places. In recent years the presentation of many services to the public has benefited from innovations in mapping such as Google’s slippy maps, making information much more accessible and usable.  In particular, when it comes to positive activities for young people, map-based presentation is seen as a vital visualisation tool.

So I was very pleased recently to see the announcement from ESRI to open up its GIS system for use in Google maps mashups. ESRI is one of the biggest GIS vendors in the government space, but until now that data has been difficult to access in web applications except through ESRI’s own web products. With increasing numbers of councils looking to services such as Google maps as cheaper, more usable alternatives to the GIS vendors, ESRI has done the right thing to move to a more open model making the government’s heavy investments in GIS technology accessible to the public.

However, the Guardian’s Free Our Data campaign reports that the Ordnance Survey has recently contacted local authorities to make it clear that any data derived from their data, which means any points, areas etc. captured over the base maps, cannot then be used on Google Maps. Whilst I sympathise with the OS’ objections to Google’s terms and conditions, this constitutes a significant backward step for all those government projects which were seeking to release data to the public in a more digestible form. It also seems to put the breaks on use of the ESRI integration just as things were looking more hopeful in the public sector GIS arena.

The comments to the Free Our Data blog post indicate that Google may have acted quickly to change its terms and conditions, and I would call on the OS to do the same to give an innovative tool back to government and show some support for the principles of open public sector data.