[Talk-us] Importing County Data

Mike Thompson miketho16 at gmail.com
Mon Dec 20 15:38:39 UTC 2021


>
>
>
> In the USA, county level agencies must follow state law regarding public
> records access. Quick google search for new jersey public records law -
>
I think this thread is about data from Linn County Iowa, there seems to be
a separate thread about data from New Jersey?

Nevertheless, I took your good advice and researched the Iowa public record
law.  It seems it makes an exception for GIS data:

"
4. However, notwithstanding subsections 1 and 2, a government body is not
required to permit access to or use of the following: a. A geographic
computer database by any person except upon terms and conditions acceptable
to the governing body. The governing body shall establish reasonable rates
and procedures for the retrieval of specified records, which are not
confidential records, stored in the database upon the request of any
person.[0]
"

My non-lawyer interpretation of this is that the government body, in this
case Linn County Iowa, can set whatever terms and conditions they want for
accessing the GIS database (presumably the whole database, or a substantial
part of), but must allow for retrieval of specific (individual) records
from that database for a reasonable rate (and gives no indication as to
what terms and conditions/license might apply to those specific records
once in the hands of the requestor).

Given this, in my view it would be best if a county official who has the
authority to do so, would give explicit permission for including their data
in OSM.  An example email/letter is on the wiki[1]

Again, I think the general idea of importing this data is a good one,
provided that the license issue can be resolved, and the other requirements
outlined on the wiki for imports are met.

Mike

[0] https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/22.pdf
[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Getting_permission
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