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Data Policy Thoughts

Why boundaries are important geodata

A great post by Matthew Somerville on the mysociety.org blog, discusses the impact of Parliamentary constituencies changing and some of the political capital that is generated as a result.

Birmingham parliamentary boundaries
Birmingham parliamentary boundaries

Transparency in this part of the democratic process will absolutely vital in the upcoming general election, and yes you guessed it although the boundaries are defined by the Boundaries Commission their representation as geospatial data is Crown Copyright managed by Ordnance Survey.

This is the one data set currently licensed by the OS that should surely if not put into the public domain be licensed under one of the new more open and lightweight licenses the OS are working as part  of their new strategy.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network

2 replies on “Why boundaries are important geodata”

I absolutelye agree that boundaries are important geodata. In Norway we have started a fight, using legal arguments, to free administrative boundaries. The arguments are basically that they are part of a legal framework, giving them the same lack of protection as laws, and that BHb v William Hill implies that they cannot be protected as a database.

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