OneGeology Europe – a harmonised Code of Practice for the European
Geological Surveys
A. Kuczerawy, K. Janssen, J. Dumortier,
Interdisciplinary Centre for Law & ICT (ICRI) – K.U.Leuven
Sint-Michielsstraat 6, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
The objective of the OneGeology – Europe project is, in short, to create a harmonized 1:
1.000.000 geological map of Europe. Moreover, the goal of the project is to make
geological spatial data held by the European Geological Surveys discoverable and
accessible for public authorities, citizens and businesses. In order to achieve this
objective, different teams work on technical issues like data specifications, a data
model, or data discovery. The dissemination and obtaining of geological spatial data,
however, does not only depend on technical conditions. It is clear that matters like
knowing whether appropriate data exists, where it is located, obtaining licences in a
quick and user-friendly way, and being able to use the data without unnecessary
restrictions are very important for the proper accessibility of the geological spatial data.
Therefore, an important part of the project is the workpackage on legal issues, within
which the main task is to identify existing legal and policy barriers to the sharing and reuse of geological spatial data, and to develop practicable and user-friendly access and
licensing policies.
It was decided that these access and licensing policies would be developed in a form of
a code of practice with model licences that could be used by all European Geological
surveys. Such a code and model licences can stimulate harmonization while taking into
account specific needs of the Surveys stemming from their national legal regimes.
The first step in the creation of the code of practice was to identify and analyse the
existing EU legislation in order to ensure compliance and compatibility with the
European regulations. Mainly, consideration was given to the three most important
directives: the INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC1, the PSI Directive 2003/98/EC2, and the
Access Directive 2003/4/EC3. Attention was also given to the legal framework on
intellectual property rights. The focus of the examination was put on copyright on
spatial data sets and databases, and the sui generis protection of databases. Next, the
project looked into recent developments that have been getting attention in the spatial
data community, i.e. the usability of creative commons-type licences for public sector
spatial data and the possibilities of digital rights management. All the findings of this
extended study were published in a report titled ‘Analysis of existing legal framework’4
issued in April 2009. The report was presented and discussed with the international
Acknowledgment: The OneGeology-Europe project is co-funded by the European Commission DG Information
Society’s eContentplus programme.
1
Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (the INSPIRE directive );
2 Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public
sector information (the PSI directive);
3 Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2003 on public access to
environmental information and repealing Council Directive 90/313/EEC (the Access directive);
4 To be downloaded from the OneGeology – Europe website: http://www.onegeology-europe.eu/files/doc/D7.1%20%20Analysis%20of%20existing%20legal%20framework.pdf
geological community at the EUREGEO 2009 conference in Munich, Germany, in June
2009.
Next to an analysis of the legal framework applicable to geological spatial data, a clear
insight was also needed in the existing experiences and problems with the availability of
geological spatial data, both from the point of view of the Geological Surveys and the
users. 20 representatives of both the Geological Surveys and the project’s user group
gathered to share knowledge on the problems they encounter when providing or using
geological data. The discussion provided useful information about issues that both
groups find the most problematic for their activities, like for example transparency on
where to find geological spatial data and on the conditions for use of these data. This
input was very important to determine the main points of attention for the code of
practice. Next to this general inventory of existing issues and problems, an in-depth
analysis was undertaken of business models as well as access and licensing policies of
two organizations with dramatically different approaches to these issues, the Dutch
Geological Survey TNO and the British Geological Survey BGS. This also showed that
there are many ways of handling access and licensing issues and that the differences
stem from distinct traditions, legal regulations and methods of financing national
geological surveys.
All the research carried out has revealed that building a single uniform access policy for
all European Geological Surveys might be difficult to achieve in the current
development of the climate on the availability of geological data. Therefore, it was
chosen to construct a flexible model for the code of practice.
The code of practice consists of three parts: a uniform part, a flexible part and the model
licences. Some matters, like informational requirements, or an obligation to provide
discovery services free of charge are harmonised for all the Geo Surveys. This part
addresses issues for which such possibility of standardisation existed, because the legal
obligations underlying these matters are straightforward, and leave no margin of
appreciation for the public authorities or the Member States.
The second part, which addresses issues that are currently not ready to be completely
unified, like the charges for download services, is constructed of different components
to be chosen from by the Geological Surveys. This solution was designed to deal with
specific national regulations in the best way. In order to identify the necessary
components we collected information from all the participating Euro Geo Surveys about
their charging policies, user group differentiation, the possibility of a quid pro quo
approach as well as other important issues for which national laws provide specific
regulations. They were all used in the flexible part of the code where the Geo Surveys
have an opportunity to choose from proposed options the one best matching their needs.
In this way, the existing business models could be reconciled.
The last part of the code provides model licences to be used by the Geological Surveys.
Having the same type of licenses across the European Community will help the users to
manoeuvre across the existing spatial information landscape. It will also ease the work
of the Geological Surveys who can rely on the proposed models without a need to
design of their own licences. The model licenses were designed with attention to the
INSPIRE drafting team’s work in order to maintain a high level of consistency between
this work and the OneGeology-Europe project.
The three parts discussed above contribute to the creation of the code of practice for the
European Geological Surveys. Altogether they ensure that the minimum level required
by the European framework is adopted and that all the participants provide the
necessary amount of data to their users. As it highlights which of the requirements are a
‘must-have’ type and which are rather ‘nice-to-have’, it encourages harmonisation, but
at the same time it lets the Geological Surveys take into account their national traditions
and requirements. Finally, it gives (almost) ready-to-use licence models which will
simplify and fasten the whole procedure of disseminating and obtaining geological
spatial data.
This presentation will introduce the code of practice and will give an overview of the
work done in the process of its creation. It will discuss the main points of attention,
advocate a broad use of the code, and highlight the problems that were encountered in
the development of a harmonised approach to access and licensing policies.