Ethics in the use of geospatial information in the Americas

Gómez, Paloma Merodio; Santiago, Andrea Ramírez; Seco, Gabriela García; Casanova, Rosario; McKenzie, Denise; Tucker, Christopher

doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101964

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Although there is an almost universal understanding that smart-city initiatives are beneficial to the inhabitants and society as a whole, concerns related to privacy, data ownership, and security are of paramount importance. Research efforts can contribute by proposing frameworks and guidelines for the responsible and transparent use of geospatial information in urban planning [174]. New approaches prioritizing privacy for datasets with sensitive data, such as those employing images and videos, should have great attention in the coming years.…”

Section: The Future Of Data-driven Smart Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Achieving Sustainable Smart Cities through Geospatial Data-Driven Approaches

Costa,

Bittencourt,

Oliveira

et al. 2024

Sustainability

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In recent years, the concept of smart cities has become increasingly important in the pursuit of sustainable development goals. In general, common urban challenges have been addressed through smart-city services, and new perspectives for more sustainable cities have emerged. To realize the full potential of such smart urban environments, geospatial approaches have been used as a focal point, offering a plethora of applications that contribute to a better understanding of urban challenges and innovation potentials. Nevertheless, although significant progress has been made, different problems may arise when the available technologies and resources are not understood or even when their potentialities are not properly capitalized. This article reviews the state of the art in the field, highlighting success cases and remaining challenges in exploiting geospatial data-driven strategies, particularly when leveraging geographic information systems, satellites, and distributed sensors to produce and process geospatial data and datasets in urban scenarios. Moreover, a more organized perspective of the area is provided in this article, as well as future development trends, supporting new research efforts in this area when empowering smart cities for a more sustainable future.

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Section: The Future Of Data-driven Smart Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Achieving Sustainable Smart Cities through Geospatial Data-Driven Approaches

Costa,

Bittencourt,

Oliveira

et al. 2024

Sustainability

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“…The authors note that the UNGGIM has co-developed, with the World Bank, the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF), which are guidance documents that address the specific challenges associated with the management, use, and exchange of geospatial data and national strategies for the use of geospatial data to meet the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. Merodio Gomez et al (2022) [78] explicated the potential misuse and monitoring concerns in the context of the Americas, with recommendations on ethical limitations (e.g., the Locus Charter) to ensure a balance between the risks and benefits of its use in South and Latin American countries.…”

Section: Guiding Principles and Cautions For Geoethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meeting the Challenges of the UN Sustainable Development Goals through Holistic Systems Thinking and Applied Geospatial Ethics

Caudill,

Pulsifer,

Thumbadoo

et al. 2024

IJGI

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The halfway point for the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was marked in 2023, as set forth in the 2030 Agenda. Geospatial technologies have proven indispensable in assessing and tracking fundamental components of each of the 17 SDGs, including climatological and ecological trends, and changes and humanitarian crises and socio-economic impacts. However, gaps remain in the capacity for geospatial and related digital technologies, like AI, to provide a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of the complex and multi-factorial challenges delineated in the SDGs. Lack of progress toward these goals, and the immense implementation challenges that remain, call for inclusive and holistic approaches, coupled with transformative uses of digital technologies. This paper reviews transdisciplinary, holistic, and participatory approaches to address gaps in ethics and diversity in geospatial and related technologies and to meet the pressing need for bottom-up, community-driven initiatives. Small-scale, community-based initiatives are known to have a systemic and aggregate effect toward macro-economic and global environmental goals. Cybernetic systems thinking approaches are the conceptual framework investigated in this study, as these approaches suggest that a decentralized, polycentric system—for example, each community acting as one node in a larger, global system—has the resilience and capacity to create and sustain positive change, even if it is counter to top-down decisions and mechanisms. Thus, this paper will discuss how holistic systems thinking—societal, political, environmental, and economic choices considered in an interrelated context—may be central to building true resilience to climate change and creating sustainable development pathways. Traditional and Indigenous knowledge (IK) systems around the world hold holistic awareness of human-ecological interactions—practicable, reciprocal relationships developed over time as a cultural approach. This cultural holistic approach is also known as Systemic Literacy, which considers how systems function beyond “mechanical” aspects and include political, philosophical, psychological, emotional, relational, anthropological, and ecological dimensions. When Indigenous-led, these dimensions can be unified into participatory, community-centered conservation practices that support long-term human and environmental well-being. There is a growing recognition of the criticality of Indigenous leadership in sustainability practices, as well as that partnerships with Indigenous peoples and weaving knowledge systems, as a missing link to approaching global ecological crises. This review investigates the inequality in technological systems—the “digital divide” that further inhibits participation by communities and groups that retain knowledge of “place” and may offer the most transformative solutions. Following the review and synthesis, this study presents cybernetics as a bridge of understanding to Indigenous systems thinking. As non-Indigenous scholars, we hope that this study serves to foster informed, productive, and respectful dialogues so that the strength of diverse knowledges might offer whole-systems approaches to decision making that tackle wicked problems. Lastly, we discuss use cases of community-based processes and co-developed geospatial technologies, along with ethical considerations, as avenues toward enhancing equity and making advances in democratizing and decolonizing technology.

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“…On many occasions, geospatial datasets include critical or culturally sensitive locations, such as protected environmental sites, which should not be disclosed to the private corporations trying to profit from these data (Gómez et al, 2022; Johnson & Scassa, 2023; Quach et al, 2022; W3C, 2022). Nevertheless, most companies do not have anywhere near the resources to protect their infrastructure such as hyperscalers AWS, GCP, or Azure, and are therefore adopting their cloud‐based solutions.…”

Section: Current Geospatial Data Sovereignty Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

MapSafe: A complete tool for achieving geospatial data sovereignty

Sharma,

Martin,

Swanlund

2023

Transactions in GIS

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Sensitive geographic data are invaluable assets for the people to whom they belong and their disclosure should be decided by the sovereign data owner (SDO). Due to several high‐profile data breaches and business models that commercialize user data, the need for new approaches to geoprivacy and data sovereignty has grown. We propose MapSafe, a client web application that first obfuscates datasets using donut masking or hexagonal binning, separately, and thereafter implements a multi‐level encryption scheme that permits SDOs to share the final encrypted volume containing the geospatial information when they choose and at a level of detail which they are comfortable. The authenticity verification of the volume is facilitated by storing the hash value corresponding to the encrypted volume immutably on the Blockchain as a public record. Our approach places geoprivacy under data guardians'’ control, and its integration capabilities promote its adoption in existing and future geospatial web systems.

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Ethics in the use of geospatial information in the Americas

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

Achieving Sustainable Smart Cities through Geospatial Data-Driven Approaches

Achieving Sustainable Smart Cities through Geospatial Data-Driven Approaches

Meeting the Challenges of the UN Sustainable Development Goals through Holistic Systems Thinking and Applied Geospatial Ethics

MapSafe: A complete tool for achieving geospatial data sovereignty

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