Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data (2001)

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RECONCILING THE VIEWS OF THE STAKEHOLDERS 80 service. The resulting arrangements are likely to be complex, particularly if the information system serves multiple objectives.4 Purchasing Data and Public-Private Partnerships Under some circumstances data collected by commercial entities or by public-private partnerships may be suitable for use in public-purpose information systems. Criteria for government agencies purchasing data for public-purpose information systems include the following: • The data must fulfill public-sector needs. For example, data intended for scientific purposes must fulfill both immediate research objectives and long-term scientific goals. This in turn requires that the government acquire all the data rights (i.e., full and open access) within a specified period of time. • The data must be of suitable quality and have undergone credible calibration and validation techniques to assure they meet that quality. If the objectives include contributing to future research needs, full documentation is required (see “Purchasing Data for Scientific Research” above). When the data are initially available for confidential scientific audit, the vendor must make a commitment to publish the full record of that audit when commercial reasons for confidentiality are no longer applicable. • Because it takes several years to fully develop data products, there must be a reasonable prospect of a long-term supply of data. 4For example, legislation governing data policy for Landsat-7 seeks to achieve multiple goals: (1) ensure that unenhanced data are available to all users at the cost of fulfilling user requests; (2) ensure timely and dependable delivery of unenhanced data to the full spectrum of civilian, national security, commercial, and foreign users and the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive; (3) ensure that the United States retains ownership of all unenhanced data generated by Landsat-7; (4) support the development of the commercial market for remote sensing data; (5) ensure that the provision of commercial value-added services based on remote-sensing data remains exclusively the function of the private sector; and (6) to the extent possible, ensure that the data distribution system for Landsat-7 is compatible with the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, Public Law 102–555).