The property of a randomly chosen "John Smith"

Mecklenburg County (Charlotte), North Carolina is currently facing an information-sharing predicament. POLARIS, their county-wide interactive web map, currently serves up property ownership information as part of the real property and tax records in the county databases. The county is looking to remove the ability to search by owner to locate land records, mainly because the police are concerned that criminals may use the system to target officers’ homes. I appreciate the concern for the safety of the police force, however theoretically anyone could target anyone else using public records. Just because you have a hammer doesn’t mean you’re going to start hitting people with it. Intentionally crippling a web service and reducing accessibility should always be seen as a major step backwards.(...)
Read the rest of Equality in Data: Should personal addresses be redacted? (170 words)

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: FOIA, Internet, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, opra, Privacy

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State Plan maps spanning 70 years.

Encourage development in and around our cities. Preserve areas of environmental importance, such as the Highlands and Pinelands. Plan accordingly for agriculture.

I’m always surprised when environmentalists and developers claim that a proposed plan or regulation will have severe ramifications one way or another. The current course on which we are traveling has been set a long time ago. We still march towards statewide build out, while simultaneously preserving thousands of acres of farmland and open space.

That being said, we still need to plan to ensure that on a micro level to ensure that development is encouraged where appropriate and that the environs protected or reserved for later growth. The 2009 New Jersey State Plan is currently available from the Office of Smart Growth‘s web page for informational purposes only. The public comment period will likely begin in June. However, you don’t have to wait until June to take a look at the draft final plan and map. I’ve also made the draft final map available on NJ State Atlas.

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: new jersey, New Jersey State Atlas, Planning, State Plan

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Ogle Earth sums up the issue quite well:

Did both Google and DigitalGlobe separately receive a request from a government (presumably the US, but possibly Pakistan) to remove this imagery from public scrutiny, and comply, or is there a contractual obligation/legal obligation on the part of Google to remove imagery from Google Earth if DigitalGlobe removes it from its product list? Did DigitalGlobe make a mistake in publishing the 2006 imagery available in the first place, considering that the US military has “shutter control” of the satellite’s cameras? Or perhaps (and I’m merely speculating), since the Predator drone operations are run by the CIA and not the US military, were shutter control orders somehow not properly relayed via the usual channels?

I’d love to find out exactly why the images were pulled. Once they’ve made the rounds, it’s almost pointless to remove them. Haven’t we learned from the Streisand Effect?

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Data, DigitalGlobe, Google Earth, Government, redaction, satellite

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© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Data, OGIS, schools

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© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: municipal gis, New Jersey Geospatial Forum, user groups

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Some information is protected under federal laws like HIPAA, State laws (such as our own OPRA) often protect information that could be used to identify an individual. The Government Records Council has upheld redaction of information that personally identifies an individual. Any other information stored by a government entity (with exceptions) can be requested by anyone.

Google is now making the case that complete privacy does not exist. Some agree with Google. I personally feel that if it’s something that’s available to you but not readily accessible, making it accessible through the internet is not an invasion of privacy. What’s your take on privacy? Where should the line be drawn?

© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2008. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Google, legal, Privacy, street view

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© John Reiser for new jersey geographer, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Government, meeting, opra

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