Commercial GI Data Providers Meeting
28 November 1995

Meeting Report (Final)

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Meeting Introduction.
• Input from Participants
• Meeting Conclusion
• Annex A
  • EGII - Commercial GI Data Providers Meeting
  • The EGII Policy Document
  • Questions to Consider

Introduction

The latest version of the EGII Policy Document, dated 28 November 1995, was distributed at the meeting, as amended by Prof. Peter Burrough specifically to take account of earlier comments of the commercial GI data providers. This document is available separately and can be accessed on the I­M Europe Web site from 7 December 1995.

The meeting was opened and chaired by Mr. Martin Littlejohn, DG XIII/E.3, with regrets from Mr. R F de Bruïne for being unable to chair the session. Mr. W. Huber, Head of Unit, arrived later in the session and gave interesting information on the progress of the INFO2000 Programme progress to date. It is under INFO2000 that the GI2000 specific actions will take place.

Meeting Introduction.

Mr Littlejohn (ML) called the meeting to order promptly at 1400h, welcomed the partici pants, and made a short introduction placing DG XIII-E3 GI initiatives in context regarding the information market activities of the Commission. He then presented the two main ob jectives of the meeting and eight key issues were offered for discussion. (See Annex C).

Input from Participants

Rather than report what each individual said, this report contains a summary of all issues raised or main comments made on the principal themes. These are listed in no specific pri ority order.

The monopoly of government GI Institutions (NMAs, NSIs, etc.)

• In many countries, there is actual monopolistic control or "near" monopolistic control of the NMAs (National Mapping Agencies) in regard to base maps (including much thematic mapping). This prevents other data (which they do not control or hold) from being more fully exploited by those who would wish to add value to this other data (e.g. remote sensing data) but which needs to be shown as overlay(s) on base maps controlled by NMAs (which are too expensive to incorporate into the new products).

• It is often difficult to acquire base map data because of cost charged by many NMAs.

• Commercial data providers often find that, after they have taken the initial risk to enter or exploit specific market niches, the "monopolistic" NMAs then move in later, with unfair advantage because they control the base map sets.

• The USA model of data availability (based on the Freedom of Information Act) would be better; but does this model really apply to the European situation?

• Some NMAs simply will not release certain data, under any circumstances, preventing its further exploitation by commercial developers. In some cases, this is for security or other reasons declared by the government, but not in all cases. It is often difficult to find out exactly why certain datasets are not released - or even that they exist.

• The EU should try to "regulate" the existing monopolistic practices of NMA-type organisations in the future, perhaps by requiring more outsourcing of data collection, etc. (ML stated that current EU policy is to reduce regulatory initiatives thus making such an approach difficult.).

• NMAs should be "forced" to compete with commercial data providers on purely competitive grounds (using some as yet unidentified set of mechanisms). Yet, NMAs do not have a common role, nor common government mandates, objectives, etc. across all Member States.

• It is naive to believe that the past cost of collecting often uneconomic datasets as incurred by NMAs can suddenly be offset by charging their full cost to a small potential customer base. The very price, which will be high, per dataset, as we see today, pre vents the customer base from growing, which keeps the price high, ad infinitum.

• It was pointed out that NMAs were created, in past history, to create "maps", usually for military, security reasons. The entire GI industry now includes numerous data providers and users who have no such background, purpose, or historical structure and their needs must be catered for in future discussions regarding GI in Europe.

Data Availability, Quality and Base Data

• The EU need to consider more fully the ramifications of data which will become available as a result of new technology, e.g. 1 metre resolution satellite imagery.
• Steps are needed to identify and promulgate best practice in regard to collecting, storing, manipulating, and distributing GI, and in incorporating raw GI data into new mul timedia products.
• There are already many valuable GI datasets in existence from commercial (non-NMA) producers which could be more widely exploited for purposes other than that for which they were originally created. Mechanisms need to be found to help achieve this. The additional income generated could then be reinvested in gathering and/or converting more GI.
• No one has yet proven that government support (EU Member States funding) is needed to create a viable set of pan-European base data which would still be available at "af fordable rates" (as yet undefined).
• Appropriate quality criteria need to be defined for GI data, along with some mechanism for recording the quality of GI, communicating this to the buyer, etc. Quality can (and should?) be then related to price. But the market should ultimately determine the level of quality needed per dataset.
• One scenario for creating "base data" is that NMAs would provide the very most basic underlying skeleton of topographic features, while any data providers (NMAs or com mercial) would then provide the next higher level. Exception was taken to this by certain commercial data providers who state that they can already provide even the lowest levels of this "skeleton" data, so why should they be ruled out from doing so?
• Base data is already starting to appear across Europe, in the form of pan-European datasets created for specific commercial purposes, e.g. the transport, motoring and tourism industries. Specific focused support, at political level, would help speed up this process and thus increase market size more quickly. Lack of sufficient support applied in the correct places and ways, will not stop the creation and spread of "base data", but will not encourage it, either. Also, duplicated (wasted) effort will almost certainly result as "base data" is created again and again.

GI Data Pricing

• Some providers felt that full cost of collection and processing must be recovered in the sales price. This is certainly a minimum requirement with commercial organisations, else how are they to earn a profit? Others pointed out that the true price of data collec tion may never be recovered in some cases, e.g. remote sensing information, so it may be difficult to implement a single "regulation" that the price of GI data must reflect its true cost of collection, storage, maintenance, etc.
• It was proposed that base data might be made available within some uniform price bands across the EU, e.g. similar to the TVA "bands" existing across Member States, so that potential users would have some cost guidelines at the beginning of their inves tigations into new products or services. (This is an approach that the European Envi ronmental Agency - EEA - is already taking with regard to CORINE land cover data at certain pan-European scales).
• Base data pricing issues should not be discussed (or at least, not "fixed"), until we (someone?) has actually defined what we mean by "base data". (ML pointed out that this was one of the outputs expected from the GI marketing study to be launched early in 1996. For instance it has been suggested that address data and other linkage data out also to be considered to be part of base data).

Metadata and metadata services.

• For those trying to exploit other data sets, metadata services (and thus metadata standards) are a key issue - "you cannot exploit or incorporate data sets into new products if you do not know that the data sets exist, or what format they are in, or who owns them...".
• Some level of metadata or metadata services should be available freely, yet others should be chargeable, as services, etc. (CEO concept is for a metadata "hub" from which "for pay" consultancy and advisory services can be accessed).

Publicly held GI.

• More effort should be placed on exploiting existing local, regional and national GI datasets, especially those held by local authorities and/or utility companies, etc.
• Legal issues can become (are already) barriers to using and distributing certain (much?) publicly held GI data.
• Political stimulation is still very much needed (local level), as well as increased awareness of the pervasiveness of GI (if we could only recognise it!), usefulness of GI in practical, everyday problem solving, etc.
• Need better co-operation between public bodies (especially at local authority level) and commercial GI product producers, including investigation and trial of new methods of co-operation, partnerships, remuneration, etc. (A role where GI2000 could prove useful in the future?)

• IPR should be claimed by public data holders only on certain, restricted datasets.

Standards

• Standards (lack thereof) are still a brake on development, especially for cross-border applications and products or services (e.g. remote sensing data based products which easily span country boundaries).

• Even now, very few people in the "GI industry" seem to understand the "standards issues", i.e. just what is CEN TC/287 producing, or CEN TC/278; how will the results of these committees be useful to data providers and product producers in the near future, etc.
• There is a need to standardise GI "across disciplines", as well as across borders. This is something that seems to be missing from the current round of standards issues discussions.

EU actions regarding

• Are "pilot systems" or "prototype developments" as proposed in some EC programmes really "concerted action"? Unless these are very carefully chosen and have far reaching potential to change the industry, how can they be funded under the sobriquet "concerted action"?
• The actual or potential link with the CEO (Centre for Earth Observation) project should be strengthened from the very beginning. Not only remote sensing participants are involved, but anyone interested in "earth observation".
• Public money (i.e. EU funded programmes, initiatives, etc.) should not be used to the detriment of newly evolving market sectors in the GI industry. Many commercial data providers exist who have already found ways to overcome many of the data availability, charging and IPR problems, and who have taken the risk to create new products, services, etc. If the EGII were to now result in a large body of freely accessible (or very low cost) GI being made available, then these "early pioneers" could suffer.
• Can someone please provide better information to "outsiders" (i.e. the tax payers!) about the goals and objectives of various EU-funded programmes under which GI-related proposals can be made. (Also, the Commission should be in a position to provide better, more current info on GI-related projects that have been selected under various Calls for Proposal and/or tenders than is evident today).
• The EU should stay out of various actions that have been proposed in relation to influencing pan-European GI and "let market forces work". There is a chance that we might end up trying to "over regulate" the market. We should concentrate our resources (from public funding) on knowledge about GI, awareness and education, and (perhaps) metadata services.
• More support is needed to SMEs, perhaps by better identifying existing barriers, helping to lower these where possible, those enabling SMEs to expand on the opportunities that already exist in the GI data industry at a lower level of risk.
• More work is needed to overcome the natural language barriers that exist in Europe, especially in regard to launching new pan-European data products. (Virtually all IMPACT2 GIS projects which were to produce pan-European GI products in multiple languages have now reduced the final product to one language only, usually English).
• Any future Task Force or Steering Committee which is created to further explore these issues must contain a high proportion of senior representatives from the commercial data providers side of the GI industry (at least equal to the government agency - NMA - membership).
• DG XIII is already following up on earlier public/private synergy guidelines (via Legal Advisory Board - LAB) as evidenced by recent hearings in Luxembourg (Sept. 1995) at which results of PUBLAW III report on this topic was presented to a large invited audience.
• DG XIII's LAB is also actively involved in investigating IPR and related legal issues of information provision generally, including GI.

General issues (Awareness, Education, IPR, etc.)

• There is still a problem with the basic definition of "what is GI?" and, until this is resolved (if ever), what "data" are we talking about.
• "Infrastructure" should be "public domain".
• There is still a clear lack of education across Europe about GI and the whole concept of spatial referencing; this is especially true in secondary schools.
• IPR are acquired by those who, for example, digitise (to vector format) from raster satellite images. But the understanding of IPR-related issues is still low among many newer entrants to the GI data industry.
• While most focus is currently on how to use GI data with the new, rapidly evolving information technology (multimedia hardware and software), we should recognise that the bulk of IT now in place is "old technology" (pre-i486 PCs and Windows 3.x operating systems), and existing GI should be made available in a format that can be exploited on these h/w and s/w platforms.
• Clearer thinking is needed when we discuss application of the "US GI model" to Europe. It is not clear if this is even possible, given Europe's historic background, diversity of legal, cultural and linguistic systems, etc., especially as compared to the US. There is no sense in trying to apply a "model" that does not fit the application area. There is little to be gained in pretending that we can force EU Member State governments to act in a manner which is possible in the US, but not here.

Remarks about the EGII document.

• The paper should specifically state that private GI data providers should be involved in creating and/or providing EU-wide base data.
• Focus more on what has been accomplished in Europe regarding GI, even in face of current difficulties, rather than give the impression that very little exists.
• One of our conclusions is that the EGII should be "self financing". If base data is to be free (or cost of distribution only), then how is the EGII to find any financial support. (More to the point, what does it mean to say that an infrastructure is "self financing")? It was pointed out that, simply by encouraging wider and faster growth to the marketplace, the various government support actions that might be needed would already be "self financing" because of the added tax revenues that would result.
• Strong exception was taken to one of the "main political decisions" of the EGII Policy Document, i.e. that "A joint decision to extend the mandates of the NMAs and similar organisations to enable European-level actions." In fact, commercial data providers would like to see this entire statement struck from the document, or at least revised to indicate that any and all data providers should be so encouraged or supported in taking European level action.
• If the current document (and/or its successor) is not sufficiently convincing to lead to EU-wide political commitment and, where necessary, even to mandated change in role of NMAs, changes in view on how publicly collected data should be disseminated, etc., then we are simply wasting our collective time in pursuing its development.
• There is too little about the end-users' (consumers') views in the document. Have they been contacted? Do we even know who they are or what they really want? (ML - that was part of the purpose behind the GI market study to be started in 1996).

Meeting Conclusion

One overriding conclusion seemed to be that, if "base data" were more widely available at low cost, then the entire GI data market would increase in size through market actions alone. Other concerns expressed by many participants could be summarised as:

• Access to data was key, and involved complex cost, copyright and accessibility issues.
• Applying the "US GI data model" in Europe needs closer investigation.
• EC could propose liberalisation in regard to data, but this would probably be in relation to the larger data market, certainly including GI, but not restricted to GI.
• More awareness actions and information was needed on GI issues in general and standards in particular.
• Practical ways and means to actively stimulate private/public synergy must be found in the GI arena. There would certainly be an opportunity for this to be further explored in line with the development of new products envisioned as a major part of the INFO2000 budget.
• Metadata issues needed to resolved as soon as possible, and were already the focus of several projects being funded by the EU at national and European level.
• More information was needed on what constituted "base data" and its pricing, etc. (ML pointed out that this was also being addressed in the 1996 GI data market study).

The participants were informed that the EGII consultation process would continue throughout early 1996 via more meetings with other interested parties (hardware and software vendors, services suppliers, integrators, and end-users).

• Further revisions to the EGII Policy Document should be expected and these would be made available on the World Wide Web, as well as by post, when requested.
• A Communication to Council and the Parliament was in preparation which would take note of all comments received prior to its final presentation to the Council (for which a date is not yet fixed). The three studies into the GI data market in Europe, into metadata services, and into GI policy issues would start in 1996 and report at the end of the year (except metadata, expected in six months). These results would also be taken into consideration.
• We would try to find a way to keep the European GI community better informed on the range of actions underway inside the Commission generally (and in other EU institutions, such as the EEA) which bear directly or indirectly on the key issues raised in the EGII policy document.
• A method was needed to keep the lines of communication open between the whole European GI community and the Commission during the process of developing the Communication. This would be accomplished via presence on the I'M Europe World Wide Web site, via distribution of new versions of the EGII documentation to all who requested it (and/or those who were already on the mailing list), via further meetings, and via normal telephone and telefax contacts. Participants were encouraged to contact the Commission at any time with their further comments, in response to any issues raised to date or appearing in future versions of the EGII documentation.
• The GI2000 actions within the INFO2000 programme would likely start in 1996, including calls for proposals in various areas of interest.
• The request that a specific Task Force be formed now to continue the dialogue with commercial GI data providers would be considered. However, it was more likely that an unofficial group would be consulted on a regular basis, including meetings convened as and when convenient to all participant, and including organisations from other sectors of the GI industry, including government agencies.
• Participants were encouraged to spread the word about the EGII and to more fully use their existing national trade associations, and/or EUROGI, etc. to make their contributions to the Commission en masse, for greater effect. Political awareness must be raised at the level of individual Member State governments, a role that they were in a better position to conduct than is the Commission.

Annex A

Proposed Draft Agenda

Annexed: List of proposed key issues for commercial data providers.

(ver. 20 September 1995)

• s it needed? How to strengthen the links.
• What are the current barriers, if any? How can they be lowered?

Data exchange standards and interoperability of data and systems.

• Where are we today in regard to GI standards?
• What other standards are involved?
• Is lack of adequate standards preventing more widespread use of GI?

European GI base data, its collection and dissemination.

• What is it? Who will collect it? How will it be disseminated?
• cost to collect and maintain
• data policy issues - pricing, access, subsidiarity principle
• standards issues - collection, storage, transmission, integration
• likely impact on information market for GI, possible market distortion
• likely impact on business efficiency, competitiveness, economic growth, etc.

Legal issues surrounding multimedia - do they need special attention for GI?

• IPR and copyright
• liability, data quality
• protection of databases
• protection of personal privacy (GI-based surveillance)
• possible abuse of monopoly power, e.g. data access, compulsory licensing (Magill ruling)

Public/private synergy in GI?

• From correspondence received to date during the consultation process, there appears to be quite a chasm between public GI actors and private firms' activities. The large public agencies (e.g. NMAs) and the private firms have quite different goals and mandates (one from government and one from shareholders). Yet, as more cost recovery steps are taken by governments and/or more privatisations of national agencies and institutes occur, the goals of these two types of actor may merge in the near future.

Data exchange standards and interoperability of data and systems.

• Metadata services: How much hard evidence do we have that metadata services will actually increase the market size for GI, or otherwise make it easier to build information systems which incorporate GI, especially on an EU-wide basis?

• Note that the CEO (Centre for Earth Observation) system will essentially be a very large, elegant metadata service. They have done much research into user requirements for remote sensing and other earth observation data (report distributed to participants). They are also building a business case and model.

• We already see the advent of GI metadata services at national and international level, such as those contained in the SNIG of CNIG in Portugal; in Finland; appearing shortly from the OS in the UK; the GDDD of MEGRIN (150 sets of supplier data loaded as of July); the planned GIDD of EUROGI (for 1996 implementation, if money can be found); etc. We can expect that all of these could be connected in the near future via the Internet, certainly within the next two years, using already available technology, including ordering and delivery of actual data and electronic payment. So what is the business case to put as much emphasis on metadata services as now appears in the current EGII/GI2000 documents?

European GI base data, its collection and dissemination.

• On Data Policy (Pricing): Without any form of centralised control/contact/planning (regarding GI) at government level, how can we ever expect to see harmonised charging (pricing) policy, even at national level, let alone EU-wide? And how will government charging policy ever be comparable or harmonised with that of private industry? Without coordination at national level, how do you prevent market interference (i.e. put cheap sales price on government collected data after private industries have spent millions collecting similar data)? Has any progress been made on this issue in the last five years anywhere in Europe?

• On Data Policy (Pricing vs. monopoly control): Some governments are now engaged in cost recovery schemes. Do we even know exactly which ones (of the EU Member States), especially in regard to GI? Are the cost recovery targets set by a government uniform throughout all departments or agencies that may be involved in GI (answer in UK appears to be <no>)? Government agencies are set sales targets based on the percent recovery decreed for their department. They base sales prices on these financial targets and anticipated sales volumes - just like any other business. However, if the volume targets are not met, prices are simply raised to all users so that the ordained cost recovery target can be met. This is only possible because these departments are in a privileged position, often monopoly holders of the actual data or of the copyright to that data, and thus take no risk. It will be interesting to see what happens when some of these departments are privatised! Will they still enjoy such monopolistic "protection"?

• Changing the Market Place: How do we encourage movement from a producer (supplier) oriented/dominated GI market place to a customer (demand) oriented market place?

Legal issues surrounding multimedia - special attention for GI?

• Copyright (as a barrier): Copyright may have specific problems in relation to GI because of the monopolistic nature of certain major data holders (NMAs, NSIs, etc.), i.e. government agencies who have spent significant amounts of public money to collect data. A good example of the problem is reported on page 3 of the UK's AGI "OS Charging Round-Table - Report and Recommendations" report: "There was unequivocal concern at the use of copyright to block the development of products that were deemed to compete with OS own products, or where users were no longer able to capture information themselves because an OS product already existed. This is enshrined in the (notorious?) "Copyright 3" statement:

  "Permission will not normally be granted to third parties to capture Ordnance Survey map data where such data is available from the Ordnance Survey". (Copyright 3) This is a rather more complex copyright-related problem than is found in the normal discussions surrounding "multimedia" (as monitored by DG III/XIII/XV/et al) in its more general sense.

• Adoption of the Directive on Personal Data Protection in July 1995, and the common position on the Directive regarding Legal Protection of Databases should be considered in regard to GI. The former, because of the possibility of GI to be misused for unauthorised surveillance of people's movements. The latter in light of the recent ruling of the European Court of Justice in the case of Magill versus RTE (Irish Television Service) wherein the court held that you cannot use copyright as a means of keeping the monopoly or refusing to allow others to use information if you have information which you create as part of your activities and you are the only creator.