LESSON 19

LESSON 2019 is one and a half day workshop on legal and ethical issues of crowdsourced geographic information. The legal and ethical dimensions of crowdsourcing in general are debated among scholars and researchers. At present only limited work exists in the specific context of CGI (Crowdsourced Geographic Information). Some GI scientists and legal scholars have specifically discussed the legal issues in using crowdsourcing for geospatial information ( 1, 2, 3, 4). One of the major attractions of CGI is that from the desks and the laboratories of researchers there are now large, complex and rich datasets available for analysis from a variety of platforms. Personal information, collected as CGI, now creates data linkages between individuals, devices, and organizations. When the spatial and geographical aspects of these datasets and information streams are explored new knowledge can be extracted. With the ubiquitous adoption of smartphones and social media, the awareness of the value of personal "big data" has increased, as well as large-scale web data collection by many companies. The regulatory landscape have also evolved, notably with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), implemented from May 2018. However, researchers and scientists involved in CGI often operate in gray areas without clear guidelines. This applies particularly to secondary data usage (such as data produced for another purpose). Other disciplines have a clear ethical/legal framework (health/biomedical research) ( 5,6,7). GIScience/data science has not produced recognised guidelines. This workshop will bring together researchers, academics, industry specialists, legal and ethics scholars to discuss and understand the most prevalent legal and ethical issues in Crowdsourced Geographic Information.