9th March 2007 1

The Use of Geo-Information

Dr. J. (Sjaak) NouwtTILT – Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and

SocietyTilburg UniversityThe Netherlands

9th March 2007 2

Overview

• Geo-information• Examples• SMS Messages• Technological aspects • Legal aspects• Organizational aspects• Social aspects• Questions and suggestions

9th March 2007 3

Geo-Information

• Geo-Information:– Where am I?– What is nearby?– How can I go to…?

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS):– For professionals– Based on professional geographic data

applications• Location Based Services (LBS):

– Large non-professional users– Based on recent evolution of public mobile

services

9th March 2007 4

Examples

• Digital maps (including Google)• Locate where goods are• Locate where people are: police men, firemen,

citizens in distress• Locate where animals (birds, pigs, cows) are• Locate where storms are• Locate where buildings are• Locate where roads are• Locate where soil types are• SMS Text Message services

9th March 2007 5

Search And Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking

9th March 2007 6

City of Nijmegen (NL): Procedures Online

9th March 2007 7

SMS Text Messages

Examples of delivering eGovernment via SMS:

• Group SMS messages• SMS Bomb• SMS-Cell Broadcast• SMS consultation• SMS prize draw• SMS Alert

9th March 2007 8

Technical aspects

Technologies used to generate location information:

• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) • Mobile communication networks (GSM, UMTS)• Biometrics• Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTD)• Automated Teller Machines (ATM)• Global Positioning System (US), Galileo (EU)• Optical object recognition

9th March 2007 9

Legal aspects

• Privacy law:–Protection of personal data, police data–Processing of location data –Retention of traffic data

• Criminal law/Criminal procedure• Government information law• Employment law• Electronic Commerce

9th March 2007 10

Organizational aspects

• Inform others (“poor coordination”)• Choose appropriate topics (“lack of trust”)• Quick responds (“workplace and organizational

inflexibility”)• Staff skills (“leadership failures”, “poor coordination”)• Resources (“financial inhibitors”)• Publicity

9th March 2007 11

Social aspects

• Digital divide (“digital divides and choices”)• Involvement of citizens• Make citizens important (“lack of trust”)• Improve social safety• Surveillance

9th March 2007 12

Questions and suggestions

• ?