The current geodetic reference system in Kenya

The Department of Surveys is the official agency of the government of Kenya on all matters affecting land surveys and mapping. Its’ main functions are:-

• To provide and maintain plans for property boundaries in support of the Land Registration throughout the country.
• To provide all kinds of topographical and thematic maps in both rural and urban areas of the country for use by other Government Departments and the general public.

The department has been in existence since 1903.   
The current geodetic network in Kenya was established during the colonial times by the British. Since 1892, several major triangulation networks have been observed and computed by various organisations for specific purposes. Each organisation thus chose the coordinate system that appeared suitable resulting in a number of different systems. For each sizeable network, the readily available datum was used resulting in many datums for both planimetric and height control.
Doppler observations were carried out by the survey of Kenya between 1972 and 1973. The aim of the exercise was to:

• Evaluate the accuracy of the primary controls in Kenya;
• Provide geodetic control in remote and un-surveyed areas in the country;
• Strengthen the triangulation with precise position at optimum spacing;
• Contribute to the development of a single well fitting datum for the African continent.

The ITT 5500 equipment was used. Doppler positioning using precise ephemeris fixed fifteen stations distributed over the country.
The current geodetic network in Kenya is based on the 1960 Arc Datum. The coordinates are in UTM. There the two main reference ellipsoids used in Kenya are Clarke 1858 and Clarke 1880.
The datum for all heights in Kenya is the mean sea level referred to a tide gauge at Kilindini harbour in Mombasa. This gauge has however been submerged and a new one constructed and connected to some fundamental bench marks. By the year 2000, 3570km had been precisely levelled, the last 70km having been carried out by the Kenya Institute of Surveying and Mapping between 1992 to 1993.
There are three coordinates systems that have been used in Kenya:

• The Cassini-Soldner coordinate system;
• The east African war system; and
• The UTM coordinate system.

Before 1950, nearly all triangulation networks were based on the Cassini-Soldner coordinate system; hence the cadastral surveys in Kenya were also based on this system.
The east African war system of coordinates was introduced as a military system for east Africa. Its main aim was to unify the coordinate system for the British Commonwealth territories in the south, east and central Africa to avoid discontinuity in topographical mapping and grid references across territorial boundaries. The coordinates in this system have since been converted to UTM system.
The UTM system was introduced in Kenya in 1950 by the directorate of overseas survey (D.O.S), when it began providing survey work in Kenya. The system used Clarke 1880 spheroid; the unit of measurement was the international metre. The survey of Kenya has made an effort to convert all points to this coordinate system.
Problems experienced with the current geodetic network
Some of the problems that have been experienced through the continued use of the current geodetic network include:

• The existence of different coordinate systems has caused the need for regular coordinate conversion especially from Cassini to UTM system of coordinates;
• Pillars located at hills have been difficult to access and many have been destroyed; the network is also low;
• Lack of suitable points to base the transformation especially from Cassini to UTM;
• Lack of information or data from previous work as the records of surveys carried before 1950 are not readily available;
• Height data has been found not consistent having been derived from different datums;
• Equipment used earlier had lower level of precision and the network is generally weak;
• Hydrographical charts are not fully developed due to lack of controls near the Indian ocean, and around the lakes;
• Points established by space techniques are relatively few;
• Re-establishment of destroyed pillars has not been carried out fully due to high cost of classical triangulation method.

Minimizing the current problems of geodetic network
There is continued effort to solve the problems resulting from the current geodetic network. This has primarily been done using the Global Positioning Service (GPS).
Since August, 1996, Kenya Institute of Surveying and Mapping (KISM), under the mini-project has been carrying out GPS surveys on first order triangulation pillars in an attempt to establish transformation parameters between the WGS 84 ellipsoid and Clarke reference ellipsoid used in East Africa. The work is still ongoing but is experiencing problems due to lack of funds.
The Survey of Kenya is in the process of establishing continuous GPS observation stations in Kenya. The following table indicates the ongoing phase one construction of the continuous GPS observation stations:

FID	SHAPE	NAME OF COS LOCATION	SOC	REMARKS
1.	Point	LOKITAUNG	KEN
2.	Point	MOYALE	KEN
3.	Point	LODWAR	KEN	COMPLETED
4.	Point	MARSARBIT	KEN	STARTS IN 2 WEEKS
5.	Point	MERU	KEN	COMPLETED
6.	Point	MANDERA	KEN
7.	Point	WAJIR	KEN
8.	Point	GARISSA	KEN	COMPLETED
9.	Point	BONDO	KEN	COMPLETED
10.	Point	LIBOI	KEN
11.	Point	HABASWENI	KEN
12.	Point	LOKICHOGIO	KEN
13.	Point	SABAREI	KEN
14.	Point	RCMRD	KEN	COMPLETED
15.	Point	MALINDI	KEN
16.	Point	KANZIKU	KEN
17.	Point	EL WAK	KEN
18.	Point	MARALAL	KEN	STARTS IN 2 WEEKS
19.	Point	KAPENGURIA	KEN
20.	Point	KILGORIS	KEN
21.	Point	KAJIADO	KEN
22.	Point	WUNDANYI	KEN	COMPLETED
23.	Point	KWALE	KEN	COMPLETED
24.	Point	MALINDI	KEN	COMPLETED
25.	Point	ERDAMA RAVINE	KEN	COMPLETED

Level 1 or Phase 1 comprises of 25 stations of zero order accuracy with nine stations completed.
Level 2 or phase two comprise of 72 stations, first order accuracy, to be done later.
Level 3 or phase 3 comprise of 125 stations, 2^nd order accuracy, to be done later
Others include 3^rd and 4^th order types of which they are numerous in number although most of the points in this category are distributed mostly in urban areas with minimal or random distribution in the rural areas.
The locations of some Stations were changed as shown in the table below.

No.	ORIGINAL LOCATION	NEW LOCATION
1.	SHIMONI	KWALE
2.	VOI	WUNDANYI
3.	ASEMBO	BONDO
4.	PARSELOI	MARALAL
5.	KAPENGURIA	KANYARKWAT

                                       
Dimensions
Base plate is 2.5mx2.5m at 1.0 m deep
Column is 0.6mx0.6m at 2.7m deep on the ground.
Existence of IGS stations
There are two continuous GPS observation stations connected to the IGS (International Geodynamic GPS Services) stations; one is in Malindi and the other in KISM (Kenya institute of Surveying and Mapping). The station at KISM is currently not working. The data from these continuous recording stations are used for the computations of the baselines and eventual coordination of all other points.
 Conclusion
The problems exhibited by the current geodetic network in Kenya can be solved through the integration of GIS and GPS in all mapping aspects of the country. There is need for political will and financing of the Survey of Kenya in its efforts to carry out GPS observation stations through out the country. There is also the need for the government to source from the British, the early records of their geodetic surveys carried out in Kenya during the colonial times; this will greatly enhance the efforts of Survey of Kenya in trying to update the current geodetic network. The continuous IGS observation station at KISM needs to be restored to full functionality to complement the one operating in Malindi.

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Spatial Data Infrastructure in North Africa

The term Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) refers to a collection of fundamental geospatial technologies, policies and institutional arrangements that encourages and improves the availability, access and exploitation of spatial data.  An SDI provides a framework for spatial data discovery, evaluation, and application for users and providers within all levels of government, the commercial as well as the non-profit sector, academia and individuals in civil society. SDIs comprise the main components of the wider information infrastructure of a nation or government, that is, agreed information standards, a requirement to create and publish metadata meeting these standards, and agreed policies on access to and reuse of spatial data, taking full account of current national practice regarding such policies.  SDIs can theoretically be developed at different scales and extents, for instance, at the largest scale a global SDI advances international cooperation between nations by facilitating data availability and accessibility through multi-lateral agreements on guiding principles.  On a smaller scale, any geographical unit defined by governments (districts, provinces, et cetera) having a common governance interest supported by a framework of fundamental spatial information could be considered an SDI.

In Africa, many countries have not been systematically mapped and only a few have maps covering their entire territory that can be adequately used for national development purposes. Generally, these maps and the associated data have been collected for the implementation of various development projects. However, this data often satisfies only the minimum requirement of the particular project and the data collection is done in a sporadic and uncoordinated manner with no intention of maintaining it. As a result the data generally become obsolete after the completion of the project and is often not accessible for purposes other than that of the project. This situation is negatively impacting upon effective decision making and development planning in Africa.
LIBYA
GPC group, a group of companies that provide geospatial consulting services and solutions globally, led an international team of consultants in the planning, design and initial implementation of the Libya Spatial Data Infrastructure (LSDI) initiative.  The LSDI was initiated formally in April 2006. The program was launched as a multiagency, collaborative process being coordinated by the Libyan Post, Telecommunications, and Information Technology Company (LPTIC), and under the leadership and guidance of the Chairman and the Chairman Advisory Committee. The first phase of the program is now complete, thanks to the cooperation and hard work of representative from the 17 government and institutional entities that have been most directly involved in this foundation building stage. With the successful completion of Phase 1, the LSDI program is now ready to move to the next stage of development to build towards a comprehensive national geospatial database network, to broaden the community of involved stakeholders, and to institutionalize information maintenance and sharing procedures across the government.
ALGERIA
Definition and promotion of a national GI policy is lead by The National Council of Geographic Information (NCGI). Created in 1996, the NCGI constitutes a framework of dialogue for the activities relating to GI in Algeria. It is this Council who aims to integrate GI policy with the Algerian developments in Information Society activities, including activities relating to their NSDI. In terms of developing Algeria’s national GI capacity, the NCGI has engaged studies articulated around several features. Firstly, the production of GI has been explored in terms of standards, the amounts of information needed and the rate at which localised data is being used to cover the national territory. They have also been trying to determine what support structures would be needed to increase their capacity and what expertise exists in the Algeria. This has occurred alongside an examination of the operational means for the production of geographic information. The public sector has had a specific role in this capacity building activity, alongside the creation of the NCGI. Their activities have included workshops and seminars to show the importance of Geographic Information to the wider community; a space program which aims to partly produce large scale cartography. In contrast, the private sector activity is limited to selling GI software and hardware. In some senses, Algeria lacks strengths in the development and implementation of GI, with particular weaknesses in their GI Association, communication and education and no involvement with European policies and legal frameworks. The public institutions are felt to be making significant progress but it is the private sector, in particular, who are seen as supplying the necessary communication, coordination, education and awareness of GI to other sectors. The most ‘satisfactory’ developments have occurred in terms of governmental activities, in relation to regulatory and legal frameworks and public administration, with the provision of GI and their NSDI and financial resources also seen as adequate. Understanding such developments have to be seen in the context of international cooperation, with neighbouring countries and beyond. Algeria participates in a number of GI activities with their North African partners. In terms of cartographic and reference functions, Algeria plays a role in the Regional Centre of Remote Sensing of North Africa States and the Regional and African space geodesy project, which will help to define a new geodetic reference system in co-operation with the International Association of Geodesy. They are also active in the Regional Information Centre for Spatial Science and Technologies which provides a research role in the region. There is also activity in environmental matters and monitoring desertification in the region has included participation in the Sahara and Sahel Observatory. Finally, they are also member of the Information Committee for Development, which is related to the Economic Commission for Africa and provides a base for development for Algeria and her neighbours.
EGYPT
Although some data in Egypt exist in digital form, most organizations are still keeping their data as paper maps. Digital data are not available and even analogue data are not widely accessible. Although the description of metadata is an important aspect in developed countries, it is almost ignored in Egypt. Most spatial data is still not documented. Moreover, obtaining data from organizations is restricted by unnecessary formalities. For example, because the digitization of topographic maps is not allowed, the users are moving to illegal digitization.
SDI in Egypt is still immature with many bottlenecks yet to be resolved, such as poor of partnerships, lack of digital data and metadata availability, lack of clear institutional framework, absence of an access and sharing mechanism to search desired data, and lack of national standards. These drawbacks will demand a lot of effort and requires coordination from different organizations to solve them. As of 29^th June 2010, there had been developed a portal for spatial data, Egyptian spatial Data Infrastructure portal. This was to be run by the Egyptian Geography Network which is a national network of geographic information users and providers. The portal and all the links on the page, however, are not accessible, as the site was last updated on 29^th June 2010.
The role of the Egyptian Survey Authority (ESA)
ESA is a governmental organization responsible of the cadastre services, topographic services and maintain the geodetic network in Egypt, besides other services. ESA has its own standards for all steps in producing maps. It also has all the assets of the maps produced by ESA or by other organizations, so all geospatial data are in its own warehouse. It has produced their metadata for the topographic maps with its different scales. It also made the cadastral catalogue for the 26 government units. There is also the digital catalogue which gives information about all digital maps covered by the topographic sector or the cadastral sector. The topographic and digital catalogue is available at ESA shop. ESA is building its own clearing house to publish their metadata over it. This is the first step in introducing their market for the services and products over the clearing house.
MOROCCO
Several departments are users of spatial data, mostly as hard copy, but increasingly, in a digital format. The two most significant organisations with respect to the creation, management and distribution of digital spatial data at a national level are the Administration of Land Conservation, the Cadastre and of Cartography and the Royal Centre for Remote Sensing (CRTS). Other departments involved in the creation of base digital spatial data are the Geology Directorate and the Statistics Directorate. The limited involvement of the private sector focuses largely on the development of specific applications.
The Department of the Prime Minister is creating a National council for Geographic Information (CNIG) that will develop the digital geographic information sector and put in place an institutional framework for the coordination of exchange procedures and the dissemination of digital spatial data. Currently the National Council for Cartography deals with aspects relating to mapping, while the National Council for Remote Sensing has recorded information concerning existent programs and base data developed by different departments. Both these committees’ research users’ needs and initiate programs in response to these needs.
Each institution is responsible for dissemination the data it produces. The CRTS provides information on the availability of digital spatial data and how data may be accessed through its website, www.crts.gov.ma. A further project underway is the archiving and access system for digital data, which became operational in September 2000. A study is underway regarding metadata and procedures for access and utilisation of digital spatial data. There is an awareness of the role that the availability of metadata can play in minimising duplication in data capture and ensuring appropriate use of existing data. While standards in general are addressed by a component within the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which by and large adopts international standards, it is anticipated that the CNIG will form a working group to deal specifically with digital spatial data.
TUNISIA
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has been cooperating with the Tunisian government by providing technology transfers to assist in designing a national infrastructure for digital geographical data. Tunisian national geomatics program (GEONAT) website was officially launched on 26^th April 2005. GEONAT is a national geomatics program that will provide Tunisia with a geospatial data infrastructure, making geomatics an important economic lever and establishes it as an activity that contributes to sustainable development. The website, http://www.geonat.gov.tn/export/intproj/tunisia/index_en.html, is still under construction.
As of 2008, Tunisia had initiated SDI development through legislation. Projects are on going to implement geographical databases alongside the creation of Geographical Repository and Spatial Data Warehouse especially in national organizations such as Agriculture and Environment. This will provide the framework for a Federated Research Project called the Global Information System Relative to the Air, the Earth and the Sea. The principal objective of this project is to offer the participants access to accurate and up-to-date data within the framework of Spatial Data Warehouse. The adopted steps consists of creation of National
Director of Geomatics office whose mandate is the identification geomatics programs and actions that should be concretised in the short and medium terms within the framework of implementing an information infrastructure as an important engine for socio-economic in the country.

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Challenges a developing country like Kenya faces in implementing web based mapping

1. Data limitations
This is a problem that has faced GIS (geospatial technology and resources) users for decades in both developed and developing nations. Finding the money to collect new data and to convert paper maps and data into digital format continues to be a problem. In many cases digital data do exist, but there are issues of  confidentiality, national security, etc.
A near national coverage only exists at the scale range of 1:200000 or 1:250000. At 1:50 000, about two-thirds of the land area is covered and at 1:25 000 less than one-third. The coverage at these scales is in analogue form, but is subject to progress in vectorization or at least in raster scanning. No data surveys exist at large scales especially Kenya’s rural areas.
Based on data requirements, general and specialized GIS systems have to be designed for a variety of purposes including:
• for environmental management and conservation.
• for defence and intelligence purposes.
• for governmental administration.
• for resource management in agriculture and forestry.
• for geophysical exploration.
• for cadastral management.
• for telecommunications.
• for utility management.
• for business applications.
• for construction projects.
Many of these applications require common base data. It will be the purpose of an administrative authority to create a spatial data infrastructure by which the base data may easily be exchanged.
of specific interest may be added
3D-vector data for instance can be obtained directly by terrestrial survey equipment such as:
• theodolites.
• electronic tacheometers.
• levelling instruments.
• GPS receivers.
• mobile mapping systems.
3D information from aerial photographs may be compiled by analogue or analytical plotters or by digital photogrammetric workstations which are very few and very costly for an effective digital database creation for the public at least.

2.      Availability of Geoportals
The need to have organized Geoportals is an essential requirement for an effective web based mapping and GIS as a whole. A number of companies like Ramani communications now act as data warehouses providing limited spatial data to potential customers. In some cases the companies do not actually produce the data themselves, but provide easy access to a catalogue of spatial data products produced by others. Some Geoportals provide attribute and spatial data free, and make their money by selling advertising. For collaborative usage of data for instance in the areas shown below will require documented Geoportals for web usage of the same in other departments.

 3.      Networking Issues
Network and communication issues involving spatial data is a major overhead in developing countries trying to implement web based GIS. GIS applications require a significant amount of resources on the desktop and with respect to network performance. By its nature a GIS allows a user to have access to and analyze large amounts of data and present the results in a graphical format. Access to these data for real-time display and analysis puts large demands on network communications in terms of costs. Data must be transported across the network to where the desktop application is executed to display the information in an efficient manner. The concept behind networking and the issues that must be considered when planning a network can be summarized into the following categories:
◆ The type of communication that will be used
◆ Local area network (LAN) versus wide area network (WAN) considerations
◆ The speed of the component hubs, switches, routers and network interface cards (NICs)
◆ The operating system and software that are running on the servers
◆ Whether or not a file server- or client server-based architecture will be used
◆ Whether a centralized or decentralized servers will be adopted
◆ Whether or not to use replication when there are multiple servers
All these issues necessitate a huge financial input which many African countries lack. Network GIS can use the cross-platform Web browser to host the viewer user interface. Currently, clients are typically very thin, often with simple display and query capabilities, although there is an increasing trend for them to become more functionally rich.

4.      Ownership of Geographic Information system
There are two ways to look at ownership: within and outside the organization. Ownership of the data inside the organization is something the organization  like Ramani can control; ownership when viewed from the outside the organization can be more complex. For example, is the Survey of Kenya to own the web based GIS or who should bear the greatest responsibility in terms of control. If the GIS was to be liberalized then various organizations can design the process, make decisions about control and accountability for each layer, set of features in their databases, and tables in the databases. These issues arise as it becomes clear to different units of the organization and country that data they previously regarded as their domain are going to be more easily shared and seen by other users. It is no secret that control of information is about power within the set-up, so the introduction of a new way or organizing and sharing that information—the new GIS—will disrupt the existing lines of power within the organizations and government. A thorny issue comes  when the questions about whose budget will be supporting the GIS arise.

5.      User Roles
If the GIS is going to support the activities of multiple units within a ministry, department or any other, a basic assumption is that these units/ departments all have a stake in how the ownership is arranged. Sometimes, in state and local government, there are legal restrictions on who may or may not make certain modifications to the data, and
these certainly must be considered. People interact with relational databases through sets of defined roles and privileges. Roles and people are not the same type of thing because one person may, at different times, have several roles.

6.      GIS Software
GIS software is the processing engine and a vital component of an operational GIS. It is made up of integrated collections of computer programs that implement geographic processing functions. The three key parts of any GIS software system are the user interface, the tools (functions), and the data manager. All three parts may be located on a single computer or they may be spread over multiple machines in a departmental or enterprise configuration.Four main types of computer system architecture configurations are used to build operational GIS implementations: desktop, client-server, centralized desktop, and centralized server. There are many different types of GIS software categorized into desktop, server (including Internet), developer, hand-held, and others. The most used GIS software typically originates from the United States or Europe. In some cases this results in problems getting copies of the software as well as getting support for the software, particularly if the problem cannot be solved via telephone or email. The market leading commercial GIS software vendors are ESRI, Intergraph, Autodesk, and GE Energy.
Alternative distribution models that are becoming increasingly prevalent include shareware (usually intended for sale after a trial period), liteware (shareware with some capabilities disabled), freeware (free software but with copyright restrictions), public domain software (free with no restrictions), and open source software (where the source code is provided and users agree not to limit the distribution of improvements).
Professional softwares are very expensive to buy and maintain. The term ‘professional’ relates to the full-featured nature of this subcategory of software. The distinctive features of professional GIS include data collection and editing, database administration, advanced geoprocessing and analysis, and other specialist tools. Professional GIS offer a superset of the capabilities of the systems .

7.      Lack of adequate Hardware components
The hardware of a GIS is composed of:
• input devices.
• processing and storage devices.
• output devices
Digital data input depends on the type of data to be utilized. Imagery input is possible from analogue images through the use of image scanners. Digital airborne and space-borne systems already use charge-coupled device CCD-sensors to supply the data in digital form.

 8. Graphic standards
The purpose of any GIS application is to provide information to support planning and management. As this information is intended to reduce uncertainty in decision-making, any errors and uncertainties in spatial databases and GIS output products may have practical, financial and even legal implications for the user. For these reasons, those involved in the acquisition and processing of spatial data should be able to assess the quality of the base data and the derived information products.

Most spatial data are collected and held by individual, specialized organizations. Some ‘base’ data are generally the responsibility of the various governmental agencies, such as the National Mapping Agency, which has the mandate to collect topographic data for the entire country following pre-set standards. These organizations are, however, not the only sources of spatial data. Agencies such as geological surveys, energy supply companies, local government departments, and many others, all maintain spatial data for their own particular purposes. If this data is to be shared among different users, these users need to know not only what data exists, where and in what format it is held, but also whether the data meets their particular quality requirements. This ‘data about data’ is known as metadata.
The International Standards Organization (ISO) considers quality to be “the totality of characteristics of a product that bear on its ability to satisfy a stated and implied need” (Godwin, 1999). The extent to which errors and other shortcomings of a data set affect decision making depends on the purpose for which the data is to be used. For this reason, quality is often define as ‘fitness for use’.
Traditionally, errors and accuracy in paper maps are considered in terms of
1. attribute errors in the classification or labelling of features, and
2. errors in the location, or height of features, known as the positional error.
There is therefore need to define the following concerning geo data for usage on the internet and the body to define them is not yet defined.
Attribute accuracy
Temporal accuracy
Lineage
Completeness
Logical consistency
Managing access to geodata may present a considerably more difficult challenge for Kenya in trying to implement web based GIS. There is a long history of disagreement on the issue of geodata sharing both within the country and in the rest of east Africa. No two countries have quite the same policies and procedures for the use of geodata, and there is no settled and accepted law or custom on this matter. Intellectual property rights, ownership, the right to change or modify the geodata, the means of paying for use, the appropriate charges, the control of who can access the data and for what purpose, permission for a user to modify the geodata, permission to resell the geodata, the means of access, the extent of the user community, and many other concerns are resolved in different ways by different organizations that own or maintain digital geodata.

9.      Lack of qualified staff
This is the issue that most frequently mentioned in the field of GIS. The fact that GIS is a relatively new technology means that staff with GIS training and skills are in high demand and beyond the reach of most existing departmental budgets in retraining.
The people to use these systems are typically technically literate and think of themselves as GIS professionals (career GIS staff) with degrees and, in many cases, advanced degrees in GIS or related disciplines.

10. Corruption

This is the main hindrance and the effects are well manifested in all sectors of the economies of the developing world.

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Technical Infrastructure to Support Geospatial Digital Rights Management

The Geospatial DRM architecture is a high-level architecture of loosely coupled services that manage digital licensing functionality for GeoDRM based on the study of current digital licensing infrastructures.
The key purpose of the GeoDRM Abstract Rights Model is to create a simplified model of geospatial Intellectual Property so that it may be practically licensed, and most importantly, rights to that Intellectual Property may be managed and protected. With defined Intellectual Property boundaries, we are then able to share and trade rights to geospatial resources in a clearly defined and managed way. Implementation of GeoDRM requires several aspects which act as the technical infrastructure and this includes:

i. Geospatial Resource

This is a well-defined set of geographic resources or functionality that can be either a resource set, a subset of a resource as specified by a filter encoding, etc.

ii. GeoLicense Extents

This is the mechanism to manage and protect a geospatial resource. It is the expression of the rights and constraints on those rights to be performed against a geospatial resource. GeoLicense rights and constraints may be expressed using the following dimensions:
Right: A privilege that is granted by the Owner, like the right to View, Print, Copy, and Update a geospatial resource.
            Space: A geospatial area.
            Time: A period of time.

iii. GeoLicense

This is the container expressing the rights to use a specified geospatial resource, for a given geographical space, over a specific period of time – subject to other conditions. Potentially, we have more than one time dimension, resource time or licence time. The time dimension of a GeoLicense means the period for which the licence applies (licence time). The spatial dimension could mean either the geospatial extents of the GeoLicense, or the legal jurisdiction where the license applies, or even the location of the licensee. The space dimension of a GeoLicense means the geospatial extents of the GeoLicense, namely that geospatial area of a given resource to which the licensee is granted rights.

iv. GeoLicense Expression

GeoLicenses may be expressed in different forms, which include:
a)      Legal Expression
This is a legally binding expression of the terms and conditions of the licence, which may then be legally enforced.
b)      Simplified Expression
A simplified, more “human” readable version of the licence, expressing key terms and conditions, which may be easily read and understood by a more general audience.
c)      Formal Expression
This is a formal, computer encoding of the key terms and conditions, particularly the GeoLicense Extents. This encoded form of the GeoLicense may then be automatically enforced by the system, when the End-User requests access to the geospatial resource.

v. GeoLicense Creation and Enforcement

GeoLicenses are the containers to express the terms and conditions of a licensing agreement. GeoLicenses may be granted subject to conditions of acknowledgement, or GeoLicenses may be allocated based on a specific security and intelligence policy. GeoLicense creation and enforcement are separate workflows:

• GeoLicense Creation: requires some form of negotiation to define terms and conditions.
• GeoLicense Enforcement: Once GeoLicenses have been created, the System can enforce the formal expression of the licence. In the event that the terms and conditions of the legal expression are breached, then legal measures may be applied.

vi. GeoLicense Delegation and Management

Geospatial DRM is essentially the process of creating, delegating, managing, tracking, validating and enforcing GeoLicenses. The intention is that a GeoDRM-enabled network of services will automate some or all of these functions.
A key aspect of a scalable network is the ability to delegate responsibility to these actors in a controlled and managed way. The system would be unscalable if the administrative burden was placed on the content owner alone. Therefore a key capability for the success of a GeoDRM-enabled system is the ability to delegate these key functions. By necessity, intermediary actors may be needed to perform these administrative functions.
The owner (Licensor) of the Intellectual Property can delegate the creation and management of GeoLicenses to a Licensing Agent. Licensing Agents are granted the right (authority) to issue GeoLicenses subject to defined extents and conditions as defined in the agreement.

vii. GeoLicense Chaining

GeoLicenses need to be traceable back to the Owner of the geospatial resource. GeoLicenses may be “chained” where the Owner defines the top-level constraints and terms and conditions flow down the licence chain. GeoLicenses are managed by the Licence Manager, and licences are validated back up the licence chain. This is a key concept that is needed to allow the delegation of licensing responsibility and supporting the need for the distributed licensing of geospatial resources.

viii. GeoLicensing Communities

Data sharing between human beings requires the sharing of a common understanding of information structures and their meaning. Data sharing and trading tends to take place within communities of trading partners. Over time standard ways of exchanging information will evolve, for example, standard vocabularies to describe geographic features and processes, standard licence agreements or perhaps standardised pricing models. For the geospatial problem domain, the OGC has introduced the concept of an information community in their OpenGIS Reference Model.
One example to achieve a common understanding for the exchange of geographic information is based in GML. It defines the structure (XML encoding) of geographic phenomena and their meaning and uses the GML namespace to make them distinguishable from other definitions. In order to actually exchange GML structured data, the declaration of an application schema is required, but is not permitted to change either the structure or the definition of GML’s predefined elements.
Adopting this to the GeoDRM domain, a GeoLicense community can be characterized as a domain of participants (licensor, licensee, licence broker, service provider, etc.) that communicate to each other for the purpose of exchanging licensed geospatial data. In order to do so it is important that all members of the community obey the same structure of a licence (independent by which member it has been created or used) and to the meaning of rights, as they are expressed in the licence.

ix. GeoLicensing and Resource lineage

Lineage or provenance of a geospatial resource is an important factor for both producer and consumer of geospatial information. Consumers need the assurance that the data is fit for purpose and can be used to support critical decisions, whereas providers require recognition for their contribution to a final information product.
A GeoDRM-enabled set of processing resources will allow the lineage or provenance of the derived information product to be traced. As data is processed through a chain of processing resources, a process history could be generated listing those resources that have been used to generate a derived product.

x. Handling GeoLicense Violation and the break-the-glass principle

GeoLicense validation will be performed by the DRM Gatekeeper. Enforcement will be the combined responsibility of the associated Security system and the Gatekeeper. The Security system will verify the information passed to the Gatekeeper for the validation of the licence use. During the verification and validation of a GeoLicense, potential licence violations may be identified.
If the Security system performs strictly, no actual violation will occur and the user will be informed of the “error” in his request (the lack of sufficient licence information). The user may also be passed information as a side effect of the attempted resource access.
If the Security system is less strict, and allows the access requested despite the lack of Gatekeeper validation, then a licence violation would have occurred. In creating the context applicable to the resource in question, the Owner (or his agent) may place side affects to attempted use of invalid licences, which would include either the actions that the Owner feels appropriate to such attempts, or triggers that activate remediation efforts through the licence chair of agency, possibly all the way back to the Owner.
Two general principles should be applied when a GeoLicense violation is identified:

• The Owner is responsible for defining what action is performed in response to a licence violation.
• For those resources that may be needed in an emergency situation, the user should be able to override the license conditions (break the glass) and have unconstrained access to the resource.

xi. Automated license revocation/expiration

GeoLicenses are revocable and can expire. Once a license has been issued, a mechanism is needed to allow the license to be revoked. This capability is needed for the scenario where the content owner needs to revoke rights to a resource, or where the license has a limited lifetime and expires.
The mechanism for revocation is usually associated to the Licensor metadata in the license (see ISO 21000-5, 0). The licensor informs the Gatekeeper or Security systems how to verify a license document is still valid by including it with the information in the licensor “signature” included in or associated with the license.

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Geospatial Digital Rights Management (GeoDRM)

Geospatial Digital Rights Management is as a set of technologies and legal frameworks that are fit for a certain organisational need, enabling rights-managed geospatial networks like SDIs, where all rights over geospatial assets are specified by licensors and any licensee would be trusted to honour the licensor’s conditions within and beyond the network’s trusted environment like remote clients.
Since the introduction of the OGC Web Map Service in 2000 many SDI components are available as products and many are already deployed worldwide. The released service implementation specifications do not cover business aspects at all and thus an OGC specific legacy problem is evident. A clear separation between expert service, like WFS, and business services, like Security, offers additional advantages. An example is that a single GeoDRM implementation can cover multiple OGC Services.
For the licensing of digital content, different standards already exist but the existing standards describe the licensing of digital media content and cannot be used for licensing of geographic information unless they are extended. In March, 2007 the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) membership approved the Geospatial Digital Rights Management Reference Model (GeoDRM RM), an abstract specification for the management of digital rights in the area of geospatial data and services. GeoDRM has legal and technological aspects. The GeoDRM Abstract Rights Model key purpose is to create a simplified model of geospatial Intellectual Property so that it may be practically licensed, and most importantly, rights to that Intellectual Property may be managed and protected. It is about establishing shared notions, conventions and practices that express the boundaries within the Intellectual Property “landscape”. With defined Intellectual Property boundaries, we are then able to share exchange and trade rights to geospatial resources in a clearly defined and managed way
The goal of the GeoDRM effort in the OGC is to make sure that a larger market has access to geospatial resources through a well understood and common mechanism that enables more than today’s “all or nothing” protection. A major motivation for this effort is the need to manage the “ownership obstacle to data sharing” in spatial data infrastructure scenarios.
As technology pushes various industries toward the digital frontier, many types of content are becoming available solely in digital format, and geospatial data is no exception. Copyright-protected geospatial content used to be sold on paper sheets but is now available in digital format. As a result, such content can now be used by a variety of users and devices. Digital geospatial datasets moving across computer net­works can be easily copied, transformed, or incorporated into new value-added products and services. Geospatial-data producers and owners are faced with the challenge of controlling the dissemination of their digital geospatial assets down­stream in the geospatial value chain.

Relevance of Geospatial DRM
The Rights Model for digital geographic content must accommodate licensing for different types of business relationships and participants with different roles. Direct licensing as well as sub-licensing can take place for business-to-business or business-to consumer relationships. For sub-licensing, it must be possible to grant licences for issuing licences, which is not covered by existing ISO-REL Rights Models.
 Licensing in the GeoDRM domain must support the licensing of digital content, based on different infrastructures, licensing can take place for a static product as it can be delivered on CD-ROM. More important is the aspect that licensing can also take place on geographic information as it can be dynamically created by using OpenGIS Web Services. For example, maps can be created by using a Web Map Service and feature collections can be created by executing a Web Feature Service. The GeoDRM Rights Model therefore supports the capability to describe rights for executing a service using certain constraints on parameters. This capability is also not covered by other Rights Models.
 Licensing of geographic information requires support to declare and enforce rights, as they are based on the geometry of the digital content. This capability is described in this standard by defining geo-specific conditions on a right.

 Geospatial DRM Roadmap
To support GeoDRM-enabled licensing of geographic information, as it can be available offline or online in a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), different functionalities can be identified as necessary. These will allow the definition of interfaces between the packages to ensure interoperability and responsibilities for each package to return the expected result upon a given request.  Below are the possible packages:
Rights Model
 It defines the basis for developing a geo-specific Rights Expression Language as well as other specifications necessary to establish a GeoDRM- enabled SDI.
Rights Expression Language
It provides the capabilities to express usage rights in the form of a machine-readable and machine-processible representation.
Encryption
It includes required functionality to protect a GeoDRM-enabled SDI against fraud. Encryption enables the protection of a licence so that it cannot be modified by an adversary in order to obtain additional rights. Encryption is also useful to protect the digital geographic content against unlicensed use. An example from the music industry exists, where the encrypted music file can only be decrypted (and played) by a certified software or hardware device.
Trust
Every type of business relationship that has been represented in an electronic way needs a mechanism to differentiate between reliable and unreliable partners. In that sense, trust tells a relying partner that the other behaves in a certain predictable (loyal) way.
License Verification
This package defines the functionality that is required to validate a licence. The licence verification has to occur before the rights of the licence can be enforced.
Enforcement and Authorization
The rights expressed in a Geo-License need to be enforced. In this specification, this package functionality is represented by the “Gate Keeper” metaphor. The acceptance or denial decision for a particular request (with its associated licences) is based on the authorization decision, as it is derived by the authorization engine.
Authentication
The basic requirement for trust, licence verification and enforcement/authorization is proof of identity, as it is provided by the functionality of this package. Different international standards, which define how to enable this functionality, exist.

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Advantages of Digital Rights Management (DRM)

DRM enables content creators to get paid
There is need to control at least some of the content some of the time, or piracy rates will get so high that content owners cannot stay in business.

DRM enables new business methods
Having content in digital on-line form, in conjunction with ubiquitous Internet access, creates many opportunities for creative content businesses. This has been true for some time, but only in a few cases, like iTunes, has it been taken proper advantage of.

 DRM can help save history
If I have truly acquired a RIGHT to content, as opposed to a physical medium containing the content, then there is the potential for one to get that content anywhere, anytime, in any format required by evolving technologies.

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Digital Rights Management for Geospatial Content

To create and support a large-scale, open market in geospatial resources, Digital Rights Management for Geospatial Content is needed to assure that a “fair value for work (investment)” ethic can be guaranteed so that suppliers of geospatial content can be sure of fair return on individual sales, and users can be sure of fair value for purchases and uses of the geospatial resources.
In a digital world, due to the nature of digital resources and commerce, most digital entities are not sold in the usual sense. When a user acquires an application, he actually acquires the right to use a copy of the application. Possession is not equal to ownership and a system of software and resource licensing has grown up in the digital world that ensures:

• The user may legitimately act upon a resource if he has a corresponding license for that act
• The owner should maintain the resource, fixing error and assuring a guaranteed level of functionality
• The user may be asked to pay the owner of the resource based upon agreed criteria, whether that is a one-time fee, a per-machine fee, a usage fee or some other mechanism stated in the legal contract or license between user and owner
• The user agrees to protect the owner’s rights based on the agreement. This usually means he cannot backward engineer code or resource, nor redistribute the resource without proper permission
• The owner agrees to maintain the resource and allow a reasonable access to the users for any fixes that may be required. Again, the extent or degree of maintenance is stated in the user agreement

Digital Rights management, DRM, is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that are not desired or intended by the content provider and includes specific instances of digital works or devices. For digital content it means preventing the consumer access, denying the user the ability to copy the content or converting it to other formats, while for devices it means restricting the consumers on what hardware can be used with the device or what software can be run on it.
The first-generation of Digital Rights Management focused on security and encryption as a means of solving the issue of unauthorized copying, by locking the content and limiting its distribution to only those who pay. It represented a substantial narrowing of the real and broader capabilities of DRM. The second-generation of DRM covers the description, identification, trading, protection, monitoring and tracking of all forms of rights usages over both tangible and intangible assets including management of rights holders’ relationships. Thus, DRM manages all rights, not only the rights applicable to permissions over digital content.
Although DRM does come in many different forms, it usually has four common stages:

• Packaging is when DRM encryption keys are built right into the software, the music file, or the movie file.
• Distribution is when DRM-encrypted files are delivered to the customers. This is usually through web server downloads, CD’s/DVD’s, or via files emailed to the customers.
• License Serving is where specialized servers authenticate legitimate users through an Internet connection, and allow them to access the DRM files. Simultaneously, license servers lock up the files when illegitimate users try to open or copy the files.
• License Acquisition is where legitimate customers acquire their encryption keys so they can unlock their files

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