Public authorities possess a lot of geospatial data acquired by means of public funds or provided to them, including maps, cadastral and building data and environmental data. There is a growing interest in using such data for commercial purposes. Geospatial data published as open data in a readily accessible form would enable to develop applications and other services, such as those used in mobile phones. The broad scope of the concept of personal data means that geospatial data is often also to be considered personal data because it can be linked e.g. to a person who owns the land or occupies a certain property. In such cases geospatial data forms a personal data register, which means that the legislation on personal data protection imposes restrictions on its use.

The restriction on access to public personal data laid down in section 16, subsection 3 of the Act on the Openness of Government Activities also restricts the granting of access to geospatial data that may contain elements to be considered personal data by nature. This restriction on access also caused the European Commission to launch infringement proceedings against Finland in respect of forest data.

This article analyses to what extent geospatial data is to be considered personal data and what are the restrictions on the use of data that arise from the elements of geospatial data that are to be considered personal data by nature. The article suggests that making use of geospatial data could be facilitated through legislation that would make it easier to grant access to and otherwise process a geospatial data register that contains indirect personal data.*

The article appeared in Liikejuridiikka 1/2018, p. 34-65, a magazine published by the Chamber of Commerce of Finland (Kauppakamari)

* The article is partly based on a study on geospatial data and personal data protection by the same author, commissioned by the Ministry of the Environment. The article was also used to contribute to the MyGeoTrust research project funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation Tekes, aimed to enable a way that respects privacy to collect and use spatial data from mobile devices.