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Court Rules GIS Data Can't Be Kept Secret

Posted by Zonk on from the can't-hide-from-the-survey dept.

Silverbear writes "In an update from a Slashdot story posted in January, The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that there is not a significant security risk to the town of Greenwich in making its GIS Data available to the public, and therefore must do so. Greenwich had claimed that the data could compromise personal and national security, and was sued under CT Freedom of Information laws. The legal ruling is available."

1 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. GIS info is sensitive? Give me a break! by garcia · · Score: 5, Informative

    So, tax information (boundaries and assessments), streets and address ranges, future land-use plans, city/county boundaries, building permits, census data, and waterways information. Yes, obviously all these is sensitive data that needs to be protected from possible terrorists.

    Believe me people, if the terrorists wanted to poison the water supply they wouldn't need the GIS data to figure out how to do it. They also probably really don't care about the Census data to figure out population centers (especially in Greenwich). I highly doubt they care about tax information like assessment values and boundaries as Greenwich is all high-cost living for the most part.

    GIS data should be freely examinable. We paid for it as taxpayers and even helped to contribute the data (Census) so why shouldn't we be able to access it? In fact, Portland's $900 for the data is too steep. It should be free for non-commercial use IMHO.

    Next they'll make it all available but in a ROT-13 CSV file so they can protect it under the DMCA! Blah.

    At least the courts knew better this time and ruled in favor of open information that the public paid for.