India's Proposed 'Geospatial Information Regulation Bill' Would Shut Down Most Map-Based Services There
from the who-knew-geography-was-so-exciting? dept
It's obvious that technology changes our lives, but alongside the expected developments, there are some strange and unexpected ones, too. For example, half a century ago, who would have predicted that boring old copyright would have such a massive impact on everyday life, even to the extent of redefining what ownership means? Similarly, when mobile phones first appeared, few realized later iterations that included powerful computers would elevate another dry and dusty area -- cartography -- into a key aspect of modern technology. And just as copyright already has unavoidable implications for personal agency, so cartography is beginning to impact political power. That can be clearly seen in Indian proposals for a new law, summarized here by The Next Web:
The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill (PDF), which is currently only a draft and is open to feedback until June 4, will make it illegal to publish map-related information or even share location data without a license from a government vetting agency. Those found violating its rules will face a fine of at least Rs. 10 million (roughly $150,000), going up to Rs. 1 billion (about $15 million) along with imprisonment for up to seven years.
As an Indian government official told the Economic Times, the main impulse behind the new legislation is national security, especially when foreign mapping services are involved:
"Our plea to black out sensitive installations do not yield results. This Bill is now sending a strong message that US companies cannot be running roughshod over Indian security interests."
Another key concern for the Indian government is making sure that all maps conform to its view of "correct" international boundaries where there are territorial disputes, for example in Kashmir. Those kinds of issues are nothing new; the problem here is the extremely broad reach of the proposed law. Here's the definition of the kind of mapping data that will require a license to collect and publish:
"Geospatial Information" means geospatial imagery or data acquired through space or aerial platforms such as satellite, aircrafts, airships, balloons, unmanned aerial vehicles including value addition; or graphical or digital data depicting natural or man-made physical features, phenomenon or boundaries of the earth or any information related thereto including surveys, charts, maps, terrestrial photos referenced to a co-ordinate system and having attributes
At first glance that might seem to apply only to big companies using sophisticated mapping techniques. But elsewhere the Bill says that, without a license:
no person shall acquire geospatial imagery or data including value addition of any part of India either through any space or aerial platforms such as satellite, aircrafts, airships, balloons, unmanned aerial vehicles or terrestrial vehicles, or any other means whatsoever.
That would appear to rule out even non-commercial projects like OpenStreetMap, which builds maps from information gathered by thousands of volunteers as they move around locations. It gets worse: as a post on Medianama points out, the requirement for all geospatial mapping data to be vetted by a special government security agency means that it will be impossible to offer maps that use real-time information. That would therefore exclude all the most innovative mobile services that provide information that is constantly updated. In fact, the proposal is drafted so broadly it is hard to see how any useful service can be offered if it becomes law. Mishi Choudhary, legal director at Software Freedom Law Centre in India, is quoted by the Economic Times as saying:
"On the face of it, the Bill will kill any and every use of the maps. It is also unclear if you get a licence for maps, only you can use it or others can use it, too."
Throttling innovation in this way was surely not the Indian government's intention when it wrote this draft, and it seems almost certain that the text will undergo major refinements before it begins its journey through the legislative process. A site called savethemap.in has been set up to help people submit responses to the government consultation on the proposals. Whatever the final outcome, this episode illustrates well just how important and sensitive digital maps have become -- and just how hard it will be to regulate them sensibly.
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Filed Under: geospatial regulation, india, mapping, regulations
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Wait a second...
That doesn't seem to be aimed entirely at Google Maps. That reads to me as if someone going on the internet and looking at Google Earth without a license from the government would be subject to a Rs. 10,000,000 fine every time they visited the site.
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(Un)Intended comsequences?
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Information
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Well there goes every phone camera.
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Data?
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Once I thought I knew the answer to be negative, that is a citizen of a country could not be prostituted by a foreign country for an action in one's own country but now I am not sure.
As a US citizen living in the US accessing a Google map looking at India am I guilty of violating Indian law?
If this is indeed the case, even though there is almost no chance of being prosecuted especially if I never go to India, the law implications are staggering.
One could prosecuted for any action one made or did not make or planed to make or did not plan to make at any time past present or future by any country under any system or non system or law or whim.
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Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
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Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
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Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
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Maps
http://static.tumblr.com/29d4a21c9c79860b66ef859f2145ffff/hfchzs1/QKKmnf5br/tumblr_static_here -be-dragons.jpg
Reason number 4,296 why everyone in the US should be damn grateful for the 1st Amendment.
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Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
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Re:
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Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
That's what's ironic about the whole thing. India claims it's doing this for national security reasons, but this law won't do anything to stop foreigners outside India's borders-- people who are most likely to be a security concern to India-- from creating and analyzing overhead images and maps of India.
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Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
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Re:
> guilty of violating Indian law?
India would say yes, but the practical reality is that they can't do anything to citizens of other countries. Their law is unenforceable outside India.
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Re:
> prosecuted especially if I never go to India, the law implications are
> staggering.
This is hardly the first time this kind of issue has come up.
In most countries in Europe, Holocaust denial and publication of Nazi symbols and imagery is illegal. In the earliest days of the public internet, various prosecutors in Germany and France attempted to shut down US websites that violated their anti-Nazi laws and/or prosecute their owners. Since that sort of thing is squarely 1st Amendment protected speech in the US, the European prosecutors were never successful and they've basically just learned to live with the fact that Americans can put Nazi stuff on the internet with impunity and their only recourse is to block those sites from access within Germany, France, etc.
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"You are in violation of the GERBIL act of 2016..."
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(Also, "phenomenon" is singular; whomever wrote that paragraph wants "phenomena".)
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Re: (Un)Intended comsequences?
The reason for this is the new GPS satellite system that India just got up and running.
The probable outcome is only GPS systems built in India will be allowed in India. (i.e. they are funneling money to locally politically connected corporations and individuals)
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Re: Re: (Un)Intended comsequences?
Democracy. What can you do about it?
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> Indians are just more inept?
More like the governments of other countries are spineless and roll over for the U.S. instead of protecting their citizens like they're supposed to.
The reason India's law is unenforceable here in the U.S. is that the U.S. won't allow it to be. If other countries grew a pair and said the same to U.S. authorities when they try legislating for the world, their people would be much better off.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Guess which country uses universal and total surveillance so it can keep anybody who might offer resistance to their rule out of office>.
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Re: Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
India might disagree with you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
India is free to try to do something about it, then.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
I suspect you wouldn't go to India and say that.
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Re: the European prosecutors were never successful
Does Internet law equate to US law?
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Re: Re: the European prosecutors were never successful
Only if other countries let it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doesn't apply to OpenStreetMap
> I suspect you wouldn't go to India and say that.
Umm... that's kinda the whole point. As long as I'm not in India, they can't do shit to me.
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