Santa Clara County Releases its Geodata after losing Lawsuit
September 18, 2009The Open Data Consortium (ODC) has reported that after a three-year legal battle between the California First Ammendment Coalition (CFAC) and Santa Clara County, Santa Clara County provided a copy of its GIS parcel basemap data to CFAC in compliance with California's Public Record Act (PRA). Decisions from both the California Superior Court and the California Court of Appeal affirmed that public agencies must provide their geodata in accordance with the PRA (California Government Codes §6250-6259). Generally, agencies can not charge a requestor of their geodata more than the direct cost of duplication, and they can not restrict how a requestor can use or redistribute the data. According to ODC, Santa Clara County had been selling its geodata for $158,000; the cost CFAC finally paid was $ 3.10 per disk, plus shipping.
"We have always believed that the public should have essentially free, unrestricted access to digital mapping data that were created by the government with public funds," said Peter Scheer, Executive Director of CFAC. "Not only does the public own the basemap, but the public interest will be served by making it available to companies, individuals, nonprofits, journalists — and even other government agencies."
According to the ODC news release, in addition to providing its geodata to the public, the PRA requires the County to pay CFAC’s attorneys fees and costs incurred to assert its legal right to the data.
ODC said the Appeals Court affirmed the Superior Court decision that both the Critical Infrastructure Information Act and the accompanying Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulations do not shield county parcel basemaps from public scrutiny. These Federal regulations make a distinction between submitters of Protected Critical Infrastructure Information to DHS, and recipients of such information from DHS.
ODC also said that the Appeals Court was also clear that California government entities do not have the right to use copyright law to restrict disclosure or impose limitations on the use of their data, which had been another one of the County's justifications for selling its data. The Court of Appeal's decision was issued in February, and after the period for potential further appeal expired in April, the case was sent back to the trial court for a determination of the costs that the County would be permitted to charge for the geodata CFAC requested. According to ODC, the County shipped four disks with the requested data on August 26, 2009.
The ODC news release stated that after the California Attorney General wrote a legal opinion in 2005, stating that basemap data is subject to the PRA, 16 counties changed their data sales policy. With King County recently changing its policy since Santa Clara lost its appeal, and now Santa Clara becoming PRA-compliant, only eight counties remain in violation of the law, according to ODC.
"Acknowledgment is due to the many GIS professionals who supported the Open Data Consortium's efforts to develop a model data distribution policy, and who advocated for open geographic records according to the public records law," said ODC Project Organizer Bruce Joffe, "especially to the 77 GIS professionals and organizations who co-signed the GIS Amicus Brief submitted to the Court of Appeal. Their opinions were noted by the Court."
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