Seitenhistorie

Question (NPOC)

Our national INSPIRE implementing network, through one of its working groups, is working on creating a framework for establishing harmonised conditions of access in Finland to spatial data sets and services for the institutions and bodies of the European Community as well as for sharing of spatial data sets with other public authorities in general.

The work is based on the directive, national legislation, commission regulation No 268/2010 and the guidance on the 'Regulation on access to spatial data sets and services of the Member States by Community institutions and bodies under harmonised conditions' (by Drafting Team Data and Service Sharing).

With the last mentioned Guidance document and especially in its "Annex B. Basic INSPIRE Licence" the working group is facing some uncertainty and confusion, as:

1) in the chapter "Grant" it is stated in the second paragraph: "Use for any purpose other than permitted by this Licence is expressly prohibited without the prior written permission of the supplier, who in its sole discretion may deny such permission or claim a charge for it."

2) in the chapter "Allowed use" it is stated in condition 4: "Public access may be allowed to the spatial data set or service, without unnecessarily duplicating the original data set or service from the Member State, or any data or service derived from it."

Our working group has found the above mentioned clauses if not contradicting at least confusing what is actually the meaning of 'Public access' in this context.

We would therefore appreciate if you could clarify your interpretation of this issue and elaborate what is the purpose and meaning of the condition 4 of the chapter "Allowed use" and of "Public access".

Answer (EC Inspire Team)

1) The statement in the second paragraph of the chapter "Grant" restricts the use to what is expressly mentioned in the licence.

2) The condition 4 in the chapter "Allowed use" specifies one of the allowed uses generically mentioned above. So this is one of the things that can be done with the spatial data sets or services, as this is explicitly mentioned as allowed use in the licence.

Public access, under the conditions specified there ("without unnecessarily duplicating the original data set or service from the Member State,") is therefore one of the "Allowed uses" of the data and services (and any data or services derived from them) under this license.