Steve Hodgkinson
Should government agencies use free mapping platforms?
Government agencies are making increasing use of free public web services such as Google Maps and Microsoft Bing Maps for presenting geospatial data and to enable mashups. However, the terms of use of free services differ from those of commercial software and services. Agencies that use free mapping platforms should carefully assess the issues and risks.Free public mapping platforms co-produce government services
Government agencies have used geospatial applications for decades to display the location of public assets and resources or to add a visual “place” element to information. Indeed, it is only a matter of five years ago when many agencies held a virtual monopoly over the ownership and presentation of authoritative mapping information for public use.However, the advent of free public mapping web services such as Google Maps, Microsoft Bing Maps (previously Virtual Earth), and Yahoo Maps has finally ended government's virtual monopoly position as the provider of public geospatial information to the public. Google Maps has demonstrated the power of the presentation platform over the ownership of data. While government agencies held valuable geospatial data, they lacked the platform to make it easily and cheaply available. Google Maps created a ubiquitously available, good-enough, platform that enables any member of the public to access global maps and aerial photography. The opening of the APIs to enable mashups of spatial and other data from many sources on Google Maps stimulated a further rise in the usefulness and relevance of geospatial information, and added fuel to the Government 2.0 movement. The public mapping services have become so useful that many agencies now use them as a matter of course in their websites. In effect, the vendors of these free public mapping platforms are now co-producing government services - creating public goods in a symbiotic relationship with agencies.“Free” services create risk exposures for agencies
Agencies have well-established processes for procuring ICT services under commercial arrangements, but the advent of free services is a procurement anomaly. Free services are often included in websites created by line-of-business groups without involving the CIO - and can creep into agencies under the risk checkpoints of the procurement process radar.The key exposures for agencies using the free map platforms relate to some natural consequences of the services being provided for free. These include:- lack of assurances regarding the continuous provision or reliability of the service or that it will remain available for free in the future
- lack of control over the content displayed by the vendors on the platform - particularly advertisements
- lack of control over how the vendors use data that is provided by agencies
- the requirement to indemnify the vendors from any claims arising from the agency's use of the service.
- service interruption or unexpected termination
- inappropriate information or advertising being displayed on a map
- confidential information arising from the delivery of the service being used by the vendor in an inappropriate manner elsewhere in its services
- the agency's brand being used in an unwelcome manner
- the agency inadvertently being in breach of the terms of use of the free versions of the platforms.
