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VIRGINIA
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
ADVISORY COUNCIL
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
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June
9, 2004, Richmond
The Geographic
Information System (GIS) Subcommittee, comprised of Council
members Wiley, Moncure, and Anderson, met on June 9, 2004.
The initial meeting was well attended by representatives of
the media, public and state and local government officials,
including many such officials with GIS responsibilities. The
subcommittee advised that it had reviewed the provisions of
SB 182 (Blevins) that was referred to the Council for further
examination. SB 182 would have excluded from the mandatory
disclosure requirements of FOIA maps contained in a geographic
information system that are developed from a combination of
high resolution technologies, including digital orthophotography,
digital terrain models or related ancillary proprietary data
produced by any local governing body or by the Virginia Geographic
Information Network (VGIN) division of the Virginia Information
Technologies Agency. The subcommittee agreed that SB 182 as
drafted should not be recommended. However, the subcommittee
felt that the issues raised by the bill were worthy of further
discussion and that, relying on the specific GIS knowledge
of the interested parties, perhaps a resolution of the issues
relating to the accessibility of GIS records could be achieved.
The issues
identified included (i) whether portions of GIS records are
adequately exempted under A57 of Sec. 2.2-3705; (ii) what
additional exemption language may be needed to enable state
and local public bodies to receive the data necessary to the
preparation of GIS maps from utilities and other third parties;
and (iii) whether GIS records can/should be copyrighted and
the extent that copyrighting protects against further commercial
use of GIS data obtained from public bodies. At the next meeting
of the GIS subcommittee to be held on July 13, 2004 at 11
a.m., staff will provide some additional information concerning
other states' approaches on this issue and the impact of copyright
law on the accessibility of public records.
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