The Open Geospatial Consortium announces that it will hold a Spatial Law and Policy Summit at The Westin Washington, D.C. City Center on October 7, 2009. Professionals from the government and private sector whose work involves laws and policies related to geospatial technology are invited to register and attend.
This unprecedented event will feature talks and panel discussions by experts familiar with the wide range of legal and policy issues associated with growth in consumer and business applications of geospatial systems, software and services. The growing use of Earth browsers, satellite navigation devices in cars and PDA’s, location-based services associated with cell phones, business intelligence, social networking and satellite tracking of vehicles and equipment raises a number of issues concerning privacy, intellectual property rights, liability, and national security. As the speakers will explain, in many cases, the existing legal and policy framework is inadequate to provide governments, businesses and consumers clear guidance on these issues.
The Summit will be chaired by OGC director and Executive Committee member Kevin Pomfret, a Richmond, Virginia based attorney who has written and spoken extensively on spatial law and technology.
The OGC is an international consortium of more than 385 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. The OGC’s OpenGIS standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. These standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. The OGC’s Spatial Law and Policy Committee provides an open forum for OGC members’ legal and policy advisors to discuss the unique legal and policy issues associated with spatial data and technology.
For more information please visit www.opengeospatial.org