SDIs and privacy: conflicting interests of the spatially enabled society

The availability of information in information societies is a key issue that affects the entire society’s well-being. The possibilities for discovering new insights about the natural world, which have both commercial and public interest value, are extraordinary (NRC 1999a, p. 34). Developments in information technology have improved significantly the level of detail, currency of the data, but above all their interoperability. It is currently possible to link a wide variety of data sets at any time, and independent from their and your geographic location. Interoperable geographic data sets are at the core of SDI concepts.
However, for the highest level of geographic detail, when the data can be linked to individuals, the ever-increasing level of interoperability poses serious threats to privacy rights. At these detailed levels the interest of a society for the concept of SDI may conflict with privacy interests of that same society.
SDIs in advanced stages of development are expected to be driven by value added services (see Van Loenen 2006). Among the most promising value added services are location based services.
However, especially for these services, privacy concerns may be a serious threat to the success and further development of LBS. This chapter explores the SDI (development) with respect to privacy considerations.