http://petition.publicgeodata.org
We the undersigned, ask Members of the European Parliament to reject the current draft of the INSPIRE Directive on European Spatial Data Infrastructure.
*Public Geographic Information is the bedrock of how civil society is managed in the information age.
*Free map data could enable a new generation of location-based technologies with enormous economic and social potential.
*Open access to geodata is the best way to ensure co-operation between Europe’s government agencies on environmental and census data, and in other important fields.
*If it is passed, INSPIRE will entrench a policy of charging citizens for information they have already paid to collect, enforced by state copyright over geographic information.
The INSPIRE Directive risks holding back the economic and social potential in maps and location-based technology in Europe by many years.