Public Records to Open Government-- Northampton as a modelFrom Public Records to Open Government: Access to
Massachusetts Municipal Geographic Data
Robert Goodspeed
Abstract: Increasingly, citizens are demanding access to raw data from governments to hold public officials accountable, look up
f acts, conduct analysis, or create innovative applications and services. Cities and towns create data using geographic informa-
tion systems such as layers describing parcels, zoning, and infrastructure that are useful for a wide range of purposes. Through a
public records request to all 351 Massachusetts municipalities, this paper investigates whether these data are accessible to citizens
in practice. Some response was received by 78.6 percent of the municipalities. Two municipalities refused access to all electronic
records. Many others charged fees ranging up to $453 or placed legal restrictions on the data through licensing that could chill
or prohibit creative reuses of the information through emerging technologies. Other practical barriers limited public access to
data, such as limited resources, government officials' limited technical knowledge, and outsourcing to private vendors. A follow -
up survey among municipalities that did not respond to the request was conducted to determine if they had GIS systems or data
policies, and this information was collected for 80.3 percent of the municipalities. Finally, the paper discusses the legal, policy,
and technical steps that can be taken by governments to move from a public records" to an "open government" paradigm for
transparency of government data. The policy recommendations for municipalities include publishing GIS data for free online
and with minimal legal restrictions.
INTRODUCTION
The Internet is making sharing, combining, and analyzing geo-
graphic data easier and more commonplace. The development of
standard formats and application programming interfaces (APIs)
mean data from multiple sources can be combined and presented
in new ways by applications, Web sites, and map mashups (Fer-
reira 2008). Tim Berners -Lee, the inventor of the World Wide
Web, has argued that improved means of organizing and sharing
data will usher in the next phase of the Internet (Bizer, Heath, and
Berners -Lee 2009). U.S. government agencies are involved in the
creation and management of large amounts of data. Public access
to this information is required to hold public officials account-
able and provide value to a range of data users, and may result
in benefits to governments through data quality improvement.
The growth of the Internet has made possible new forms of data
sharing and exchange, and increasingly government agencies
also are making data available in "raw" formats for processing,
analysis, and reuse. This trend has been encouraged by scholars
who argue it is the most efficient means of realizing the public
value of government data (Robinson et al. 2009). A significant
portion of government data are geographic, much of it created
and managed using geographic information systems (GIS).
Local governments not only create unique datasets but also
determine how they are used through technical, legal, and policy
choices. These unique datasets created at the local level include
data describing the assessed value and characteristics of taxable
real estate, parcel boundaries, zoning district boundaries, local
infrastructure, and natural features. This information is useful for
local environmental regulation and urban planning, and often is
not available from any other sources.
The purpose of this study is to investigate access to GIS data
at the local level through a public records request to all Massachu-
setts municipalities. It seeks to answer the questions: What costs
do citizens incur obtaining the data and what licensing restrictions
are placed on it that restrict the public uses described previously?
In addition, what types of data are exempted from public release
under the law's public - safety exemption? The paper closes with a
discussion of how existing laws and practices could be changed
to achieve policy goals: government transparency, fostering civic
innovation, respecting privacy, and safeguarding public safety.
There are several arguments for making local GIS data avail-
able to citizens: legal mandates, government transparency, and
public benefits. In addition, releasing information often can serve
government priorities such as ensuring data quality or advancing
policy goals.
First, the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and
the state of Massachusetts Public Records Law (PRL) requires
that all government records should be available for citizen in-
spection, except for clearly defined exceptions. Because records
must be public, information technology can reduce the cost and
inconvenience of satisfying requests for both government and
citizens alike. These laws followed from utilitarian philosophers,
who argued that representative government required "the widest
participation in the details of judicial and administrative business;
as by jury - trial, admission to municipal offices, and, above all, by
the utmost possible publicity and liberty of discussion ..." (Mill
URISA Journal • Goodspeed 21
2008 [1861]: 73). Under this reasoning, government agencies
should be subject to different rules than are private corporations.
Second, access to technical data in particular often is neces-
sary to hold government accountable for regulatory decisions. "We
have to be able to see the data the same way the public agency
sees the data when they make the decision," said GIS consultant
Bruce Joffee in an interview, "whether it's a zoning variance or tax
decision or anything else." Joffee described a scenario in which a
for -profit consultant might use public data to examine govern-
ment decisions about property appraisal or zoning decisions (Joffe
2010b). In this way, making data available on request can help
serve the public interest by ensuring consistent and fair decision
making by government regulators.
Third, the release of government data can create public value.
Derivative works could help citizens better take advantage of
public services such as community centers, public transportation,
or other public facilities where using them requires knowledge
of location, hours, and eligibility. Data about street - sweeping
schedules, zoning, and other regulations can help citizens avoid
tickets and fines for unwittingly violations.' Increasingly, journal-
ists are turning to government data to produce maps and conduct
database - driven investigative reporting, and as a resource for
reporting. In the past, large newspapers and media organizations
had the resources to develop databases internally. As these entities
struggle, and are replaced with smaller organizations, nonprof-
its, and citizen journalists, it may be more important to ensure
government records are widely available at low costs so similar
information can be available to the public.
Lastly, government agencies themselves stand to benefit from
greater access to their information. Citizen users can provide as-
sistance improving data quality and accuracy, as well as conduct
analysis that may be useful to the government. Detailed feedback
on data quality could result in improved property assessment or
changes to data - collection and management techniques. Access
to information can achieve policy goals, such as using spatial data
to follow zoning or building regulations, or by shifting consumer
behavior (Fung, Graham, and Weil 2007).
For these reasons and others, cities, states, and the federal
government have launched initiatives to proactively disclose raw
information in public data catalogs.'- These Web sites also may
have application programming interfaces that allow private ap-
plications to dynamically query government databases. These new
technologies provide a variety of opportunities to strengthen the
principle of open access to government information. Making data
available through automated systems provides the government
with the ability to ensure derivative applications are using updated
data more easily and at lower costs than before. However, achiev-
ing this requires several steps: producing data, implementing and
maintaining technical systems, and developing policies regarding
data management, privacy, and public safety These developments
constitute a major shift from previous approaches to GIS data
dissemination. Previously, governments commonly provided data
for sale on CD or DVD discs in standard proprietary formats to
a limited number of professional users.
The GIS community has long discussed the information
needs of the public. Well before the Internet, Dangermond ob-
served developing public GIS was necessary despite the difficulties
created by the public's diversity of interests and information needs
( Dangermond 1988). Others have observed that the Internet
could expand access to government information, which would
reduce market uncertainty and "render redistributional decisions
more transparent and place greater accountability on those who
make and advise them" (Yeh and Webster 2004). Publishing raw
data or APIs can help achieve these goals because it can support
efforts by a range of private actors to make information available
in a greater variety of convenient, context - sensitive ways that are
difficult for government to achieve alone.
The federal courts generally have ruled databases are records
and, therefore, are subject to disclosure under the Federal Free-
dom of Information Act. Some state courts, including those of
Massachusetts, have agreed. However, access to data has been
denied on several grounds. In Sierra Club vs. Orange County, a
California Superior Court ruled in May of 2010 that a database
containing property boundaries constituted "computer software"
and, therefore, the county was justified for charging $375,000 in
a case still under litigation. Other courts have denied requests for
data created through contracts with third -party vendors, such as
in Brown v. Iowa Legislative Council. Because many small cities
rely on contractors to create and manage public data, guaranteeing
the spirit of access to government records may require amending
existing freedom of information laws to ensure public access to
particular types of data.
Governments are using new technology to make data avail-
able to citizens in new ways, such as raw formats, feeds, or through
APIs. The datasets available and ways they will be accessed depend
not only on technical infrastructure but also on the licenses, poli-
cies, and laws that must balance competing public values such as
privacy and security. Through an empirical examination of current
policies and exploration of the access to data in practice, this paper
will provide needed analysis of the technical and legal issues for
the next generation of government transparency.
STUDY DESIGN
The study encompasses an experiment in access to public infor-
mation and an analysis of existing policy. First, an exploratory
study was conducted to explore data availability in Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Public Records Law requires that any
person with custody of any public record shall permit it to be
examined and provide a copy to any person for a reasonable fee
within ten days of receiving a request. Exemptions include statu-
tory exemptions, internal personnel rules and practices, personnel
and medical files, any material naming an individual where the
disclosure may constitute an "unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy," limited executive privilege for policy development, law
enforcement or other investigatory materials, trade secrets, sealed
bids, appraisals when agencies are purchasing or condemning
property, educational testing materials, certain medical contracts,
22 URISA Journal • Vol. 23, No. 2 • 2011
the names of persons who possess firearms, home addresses and
telephone numbers of certain government officials and their fami-
lies, and records relating to security or safety of people or property.
The Secretary of the Commonwealth guide to the public records
law clarifies electronic records are public records, including GIS
databases. The fees that can be charged for GIS data are limited
to the actual cost incurred in copying the requested records. The
guide states that although private surveyors or engineers may own
nonfactual portions of GIS databases
... it is clear that the Legislature did not carve out specific ex-
emptions from the Massachusetts Public Records Law allowing
protected intellectual property in the custody of a governmental
entity to be withheld from public dissemination.... As a pre-
caution, records custodians of GIS records are encouraged to
indicate on released GIS records that the information contained
in the records may be subject to intellectual property protections.
(Galvin 2009)
GIS data are created and managed by different departments
within city and town governments, and no central listing of all
municipal offices creating or managing GIS data is available.
The departments that can manage GIS data include planning,
assessing, engineering, public works, and others. Therefore, the
request was sent to the city or town clerk listed in a directory
published by the Secretary of the Commonwealth.' City and
town clerks serve as points of contact for many public records
and generally are aware of the functions of government so thus
could route the request. 'The list obtained from the Secretary of
the Commonwealth had one primary drawback. Because the
Election Division created it, for 13 large cities it lists not clerks
but addresses for Boards of Elections, Elections Commissions,
or Election Divisions. Letters were sent to these addresses for
consistency and most were rerouted to the correct offices. In ad-
dition, the Web sites of the state's 20 largest cities were reviewed
by population (including these 13) to collect data manually about
the GIS data - access policies for these cities.
Using this list, a letter was mailed requesting three com-
mon GIS layers from the Commonwealth's 351 municipalities
to discover which are available publically in electronic format,
and what licensing or use restrictions accompany them. The
requested layers were parcels, zoning, and wastewater - treatment
facilities. No specific scale was specified. Given the heterogeneity
of municipal spatial data, these three were chosen because they
span regulatory, administrative, and infrastructure data. Although
municipalities have differing motives to keep various datasets
private as will described in the following sections, these three
were diverse enough to elicit general data policies.
All towns with a GIS program had a parcel layer, which is
a digital version of property boundaries used for assessing and
planning purposes. Because municipalities track ownership for
taxation purposes and possess subdivision authority, a state effort
to digitize parcels relies on municipal cooperation. 'Therefore,
the data are both of presumptive interest and also often are not
available from other sources. Many of the smaller towns did not
have zoning data either because the town did not have a zon-
ing ordinance or only had a small number of zoning districts.
Similar to parcels, zoning is determined locally and frequently
updated, so municipalities are the unique source of this data,
which is important for real estate development, planning, and
regional analysis. Finally, a layer containing locations of municipal
wastewater - treatment facilities was requested to test for public -
safety restrictions. However, it may not have been an ideal layer to
request. Many municipalities connect to large regional treatment
plants or do not have public sewer service at all. Some municipal
officials thought the request was for engineering drawings or other
technical information about the sewer system. The law requires
the government to respond within ten days, and responses were
received from 276 municipalities, or 78.6 percent of the total, in
that time even though the original letter was not necessarily sent
to the records custodian.' The survey was supplemented by visiting
the Web sites of the 20 largest cities and towns by population.
Together, these large municipalities alone are home to roughly 35
percent of the state's population. These Web sites were reviewed
for any GIS data policies, order forms, or data viewers.
To assess whether the municipalities that did not respond
to the records request had GIS data or policies, in September of
2011 a nonresponse follow -up survey was conducted by e- mailing
the city or town clerk from the Secretary of the Commonwealth
directory. However, this should be considered a supplement to the
original study, which also evaluated the response (or nonresponse)
of public officials to public records requests. Data policies that
were obtained through this survey were analyzed with the others.
Data was received at no charge from 56 municipalities and
an additional nine reported in the follow -up survey that they do
not charge for GIS data. These have the highest certainty of ac-
curately obtaining license, disclaimer, or other policy information.
It is possible municipal employees distributed the data without
following standing policies regarding fees or licenses, but this was
expected to be rare. Twenty-four municipalities from the public
records request (and four in the follow -up survey) provided GIS
data order forms, usually accompanied by a license, agreement,
or other disclaimer. Others provided prices but no order forms.
For these, as well as the municipalities who did not respond to
either request, the licensing information may not be included in
the dataset because the data was not purchased.
Second, 42 disclaimers, licenses, and policies collected
through the research were reviewed. This included materials found
on the Web sites of the 20 largest municipalities by population
and any obtained in correspondence responding to the public
records request or the nonresponse survey. Both data and dis-
claimers were obtained from several municipalities; most of the
remaining accompanied standardized order forms. All the forms
were reviewed and eight common provisions were identified, and
then all policies were reviewed a second time, recording whether
they contained each of these eight provisions and noting any
special features. These results are reported in the following section.
URISA Journal • Goodspeed 23
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Government data should be made available to citizens for a variety
of normative reasons about the political and practical effects of
transparency. However, access to raw data raises several issues:
practical use of new datasets, the role of licensing, public -safety
concerns, and respect for individual privacy. First, to answer
the prescriptive question about how data should be published
online, research is presented that describes how users of a new
data portal used raw government data. These findings, based on
demonstrated public benefits, should guide the development of
geographic data policies. Second, research is provided on the
prevalence of licensing of local geographic data and policy argu-
ments concerning access and licensing. Third, empirical studies
of the relationship between geographic data and public safety are
presented. A large -scale study of public federal spatial data by the
RAND Corporation completed after the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attack is summarized, but no empirical studies of how
homeland security exceptions were being applied at the local level
were found. Finally, research and principles relating to individual
privacy and geographic data are presented.
CITIZEN USE OF GOVERNMENT
DATA
The large -scale distribution of raw government data is a relatively
recent phenomenon. A study of data users on the United King-
dom's national data portal provides empirically grounded typology
of data users that gives insights about how such systems should be
designed (Davies 2010). The study proposed five general catego-
ries of how citizens used data. Although this study is concerned
largely with tabular data, the findings can be extrapolated to other
data types where citizens are presented with raw data instead of
static formats. The five use types identified by Davies were:
• Data to fact: individuals seeking out an individual fact in the
form of an individual number or value from a dataset, from
online interfaces or downloaded spreadsheets.
• Data to information: transforming data into visualizations,
articles, reports, or graphics.
• Data to interface: creating new interfaces to interactively
access and explore one or more datasets, such as mapping
mashups and interactive Web sites.
• Data to data: sharing derived data that is augmented,
combined, or manipulated in some way.
• Data to service: where data is used "behind the scenes" in
an automated service, such as routing requests to the correct
government agency.'
This study confirms the hypothesized public benefits that
may result from greater access to raw government data and pro-
vides an empirically grounded taxonomy of multiple ways citizens
use government data.
A recent report completed by the Pew Internet and Ameri-
can Life Project finds U.S. citizens also are increasingly turning
to government Web sites to obtain data and information. To
evaluate the claims of transparency advocates, the study surveyed
Americans on whether they had accessed four types of government
information online. The types of information accessed and the
percent of Americans include: read legislation (22 percent), look
up campaign donations (14 percent), see how stimulus money
was being spent (23 percent), or "visit a website that provides
access to government data, like data.gov or recovery.gov or usas-
pending.gov" (16 percent) (Smith 2010). Although the survey
did not investigate exactly which Web sites citizens accessed and
whether users had similar expectations for state and local Web
sites, it suggests that citizens increasingly turn to government
Web sites as sources of unprocessed information.
LICENSING
The licensing of geographic data was investigated by identifying
previous research, as well as conducting interviews with knowledge
of management of local geospatial data in Massachusetts. A license
of geographic information is "a transaction or arrangement (usu-
ally a contract, in which there is an exchange of value) in which
the acquiring party obtains information with restriction on the
licensee's rights to use or transfer geographic information" (Na-
tional Research Council 2004: 275). In a data context, a license
also can provide the data provider rights to guarantee these restric-
tions. Public agencies that have licensed data include Louisville
and Jefferson County Information Consortium in Kentucky,
Hennepin County in Minnesota, and the Maryland Department
of Natural Resources (National Research Council 2004: 86 -89).
The National Research Council found most government officials
refrain from imposing data licenses, and argued for "minimal
restrictions" in data use in licenses (National Research Council
2004: 86). To comply with the terms of licenses increasingly used
by local governments, the library at the University of Wisconsin -
Milwaukee developed sublicenses and a CD -based distribution
protocol to ensure access to library users but prevent copyright
infringement (Day and Maene 2006).
In general, for copyrightable works, licensing also can be used
to define a middle ground between the default protections of full
copyright and releasing creative works into the public domain. The
organization Creative Commons has created a variety of licenses,
tailored for digital content, that allow certain types of redistribu-
tion and reuse. Geographic data contains facts, which cannot be
copyrighted, with database design and structure, which could be
subject to copyright. Because of this ambiguity, Creative Commons
created the CCO license for creators of data who seek to place data
"as nearly as possible" into the public domain. Institutions that have
chosen to apply this license to their data include the WisconsinView
consortium that distributes satellite imagery of Wisconsin, and a
variety of libraries and non -U.S. government agencies (Creative
Commons 2011). Although Massachusetts courts have not clarified
the extent to which municipalities can claim copyright over GIS
databases, or what licenses are allowed under the public records
law, Creative Commons licenses provide models for how licensing
can be used to explicitly allow certain types of sharing and reuse or
unambiguously enter data into the public domain.
24 URISA Journal • Vol. 23, No. 2 • 2011
Licensing and related practices such as memorandums of
understanding (MOUs) can be viewed as merely legal instru-
ments or in a broader context of interorganizational information
sharing. Using the interorganizational relation theory suggested
by Azad and Wiggins (1995), these practices may encourage data
sharing because they improve efficiency and stability and reduce
risk in organizational relationships. A recent study of GIS data
sharing within and between organizations found "organizations
tend to regulate their relationship more than the contents of their
exchanges," finding policies, MOUs, and agreements were more
common than licensing, contracts, and copyright agreements
(Nedovic -Budic and Warnecke 2011). A variety of research on
data sharing has focused on theories explaining the motivations
and structures for information sharing and the need for empirical
research exploring the balance of transparency, privacy, liability,
and other legal concerns in geographic information sharing
(Onsrud and Rushton 1995: 497).
In an interview, a staff attorney at the Massachusetts Secretary
of the Commonwealth Public Records Division said whether a
license violated the public records law would have to be decided
on the basis of the specific facts of a case. Staff at the MIT Rotch
Library GIS Laboratory reported being able to obtain data from
Massachusetts municipalities without licenses. However, they
routinely negotiate licenses for data from commercial providers
and out -of -state cities such as New York City. When conducting
these negotiations, they usually seek to avoid statements of liability
and ensure sufficient flexibility so the data are useful for library
users (Sweeney 2010). Technology to restrict use of electronic files
is referred to as digital rights management (DRM). Researchers
have developed a sophisticated technical approach to manage
the rights for multiple spatial data users called "geoDRM" (Joffe
and Bacastow 2004). This technology is not yet widespread, and
technical measures of managing rights continue to evolve. For
example, as of April 2009, Apple's iTunes music store phased out
a file format with DRM protection.
PUBLIC SAFETY
Another concern surrounding data access is public safety. In
particular, access to information could aid individuals or groups
planning to commit a criminal act, including an act of terrorism.
In the wake of September 11, 2011, the RAND Corporation
conducted a large -scale analysis of publicly available federal
geographic information (Baker et al. 2004). The study methodol-
ogy took a "supply" and "demand" approach. Terrorists demand
certain information but can draw on a wide range of sources
including private data, personal reconnaissance, and human in-
telligence. In this context, digital geographic information is only
useful if it provides information that is "demanded" to complete
the criminal act and is unique, that is, not easily accessible by
other means. The study concluded that fewer than six percent
of 629 datasets examined appeared useful to potential attackers,
but less than one percent were both useful and unique (Baker et
al. 2004). Joffee argues homeland security considerations should
be a reason for public agencies to register data requestors, but
agencies should take a context - specific approach. In particular,
he reported that the criteria for the information to be withheld,
the infrastructure information should refer to specific "choke
points" and also not be available from any other public domain
source. "It's a recommendation, but it's referred to frequently at
the [Federal Geographic Data Committee]" (Joffe 20106). The
three layers requested — parcels, zoning, and wastewater facili-
ties—do not meet the criteria suggested previously for data with
obvious public -safety concerns.
PRIVACY
Another concern surrounding data availability is individual
privacy. Geospatial data can impact privacy in two ways: The
dataset could contain personally identifiable information or it
can be combined with other sources to invade privacy through a
"mosaic effect." Among the three datasets requested in this study,
only the parcel data contained personally identifiable informa-
tion. This data could be used to identify place of residency (for
owner- occupied units only) or estimate personal wealth. Not
only are property records public, many registrars of deeds have
moved to make this data electronically available. A variety of ac-
tors rely on the accessibility of property ownership information
for the smooth functioning of the property market, for fairness
in property assessment for taxation, and a range of policy efforts
such as code enforcement. Despite containing personal informa-
tion of owners, these systems, according to Monmonier, were "less
controversial" for they are linked closely to fairness in assessing
and use by sellers in deciding on a fair market value (Monmonier
2002: 8). Datasets containing personal information can be ano-
nymized through a range of techniques to aggregate, remove, or
obscure information, which vary in the level of privacy provided
and usefulness of resulting data.
The mosaic effect is a term adopted from military intelligence.
It refers to cases when data that appears innocuous in isolation
can amount to a privacy breach when combined (Vijayan 2004).
Although this is a theoretical possibility with government data,
it is unclear whether it would necessarily be undesirable from a
normative point of view. Local infrastructure or environmental
data in combination with demographics has been used by envi-
ronmental justice advocates to reveal environmental inequality,
such as in Maantay's careful analysis of industrial zoning in New
York City (2002). Detailed GIS maps of private residences and
municipal water utility pipes played a key role in the Zanesville
lawsuit, where the Ohio Civil Rights Commission successfully
sued the city of Zanesville and Muskingum County for denying a
black neighborhood water service for more than 45 years (Johnson
2008). Data managers should remain alert to the potential for
harmful examples of the mosaic effect, given the specific context
at hand.
Popular concepts of personal privacy also are shifting. In-
dividuals are voluntarily posting huge amounts of personally
identified data to social networking and other Web sites. In these
cases, people give up privacy for social benefits. Some of these
are ephemeral, such as meeting up with friends through geosocial
URISA Journal • Goodspeed 25
networking. Others are more profound, such as in the case of
individuals who post detailed medical information on the Web
site Patients Like Me in hopes of finding cures for rare disorders,
identifying treatment side effects, and aiding medical researchers."
In response to these developments, the Federal Trade Com-
mission has developed Fair Information Practice (FIP) principles
under its consumer protection mandate, which have been adopted
by the European Union and the Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development. The 2000 version of the FTC poli-
cies included the following core principles: (1) notice /awareness,
(2) choice /consent, (3) access /participation, (4) integrity /security,
and (5) enforcement /redress (Federal Trade Commission 2000).
The privacy policy adopted by the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security in 2008 added three principles to the FTC's original five.
Purpose specification means it is DHS policy to explain the purpose
of collecting personally identifiable information, data minimiza-
tion means the amount collected and time maintained should be
minimized, and use limitation means information should be used
solely for disclosed purposes (Teufel 2008).
It is unclear how these emerging principles, concerning
personally identifiable information, relate to the infrastructure,
environment, and other local GIS data this paper is concerned
with. It suggests developing policies with the full participation
of the citizens and seeking locally appropriate balances between
competing values. It may also suggest novel approaches that
respect individual choice while advancing the general interest
in accurate and complete data. These could include inviting the
citizens to voluntarily submit updates to property data or subscribe
to notification services when the data are updated each year.
RESULTS
Data Access and Costs
Data was requested from 351 cities and towns; responses were
received from 278, or 78.6 percent (see Table 1). Among the
respondents, the average number of days before receiving a re-
sponse was 6.8. From this data and the nonresponse follow -up
survey, it could be determined if any GIS data was available for
282. Of these, 181 had at least one of the layers requested, and
101 reported they did not have GIS data available. Of those with
data, it was possible to obtain data at no charge from 56, or 16
percent of the cities and towns in the state, which constituted 20.3
percent of the respondents. Of these, 45 e- mailed the data, five
sent it through other services and four had established public
Web sites where it could be downloaded.
Four municipalities had established public Web sites where
GIS data could be downloaded: Boston, Brewster, Northampton,
and Amherst. Of these three, Boston had parcels but not zoning
or wastewater - treatment plants available on the public Web site.
Amesbury provided the data through the Web site ArcGIS.com;
however, to obtain the universal record locator (URL) where the
data was required clicking a link that could only be opened in the
proprietary ESRI ArcMap software. Northampton's GIS Coordi-
Table 1. Summary of public records request results
Number Percent
of All
Massachusetts Municipalities
Responded to records request
E -mail
Telephone
Letter
Follow -up
No GIS data
Online GIS viewer
GIS data (at least one layer)
Disclaimer or License
GIS Data Order Form
Number with cost
Provide data at no cost
E- mailed (requested)
Download
Provided other way
Reported in follow -up
Percent of
Respon-
dents
351 100.0%
311 88.6% 100%
217 61.8% 69.8%
61 17.4% 19.6%
25 7.1% 8.0%
35 10.0% 11.3%
101 28.8% 32.5%
88 25.1% 28.3%
181 51.6% 59.9%
Percent with
Data
45 12.8% 24.9%
28 8.0% 15.5%
68 19.4% 37.6%
66 18.8% 36.5%
45 12.8% 24.9%
4 1.1% 2.2%
5 1.4% 2.8%
12 3.4 6.6%
nator James Thompson said the data has been posted to the Web
site for more than three years. At the time of the study, the data
included 14 Shapefiles and 23 Keyhole Markup Language (KML)
files, including parcels, zoning districts, water features, and open
space. The policy was adopted after layoffs reduced the size of the
GIS department, and the city decided this would be a low -cost
way of satisfying requests. According to Thompson, Northampton
does not license GIS data because it considers it against the Public
Records Law. His only concern with the policy was that the town
did not have detailed information about how many people were
downloading and using the data (Thompson 2010).
A number of municipalities also referred to private consul-
tants or Regional Planning Agencies (RPA), independent state
agencies established under Commonwealth law responsible for
regional planning, mapping, and analysis. One consultant and the
RPAs provided the data at no cost; however, several consultants
charged fees similar to the towns that had ordering systems.
Two towns, Rockport and Rowley, refused the request to
provide access to the data in digital format. In a letter, Rockport
Director of Public Works Joseph P. Parisi, Jr., stated, "The Town
of Rockport does not provide this information to the public in
electronic format," and went on to offer the information in a variety
of printed maps (Parisi 2010). Also in a letter responding to the
request, Rowley's Principal Assessor reported that the request had
been considered at a Board of Assessors meeting and the group
"voted at that meeting to allow MVPC the permission to release
only the hard (paper) copies of the Assessors maps and not the
digitized parcel data" (McFadden 2010). In the nonresponse survey,
Marshfield MIS Director Ron Menard said in an e -mail the town
only provided the data through a viewer or by contract to vendors
who require the data to do work for the town. The Secretary of the
Commonwealth Guide to the Public Records Law states:
26 URISA Journal • Vol. 23, No. 2 • 2011
"The statutory definition of `p ublic records" aloes not distinguish
between traditional paper records and records stored in the
computer medium. Rather, it provides that all information
made or received by a public entity, regardless of the manner
in which it exists, constitutes "public records." Computer cards,
tapes or diskettes are all independent public records that are
subject to the same requirements of the Public Records Law as
are paper records. Therefore, a records custodian is obliged to
furnish copies of nonexempt portions of computerized informa-
tion at the cost of reproduction, unless otherwise provided by
law.'' (Galvin 2009: 27)
It is not known how the courts would resolve the issue.
To provide citizens the ability to view local GIS information,
88 towns provided online data viewers. As discussed in the policy
section that follows, these viewers provide some access to govern-
ment GIS data, but because they do not allow the data to be ex-
tracted, they prevent a wide range of potentially beneficial activities
including advanced research, applications, or desktop mapping."
Table 2. Distribution of data costs
No charge
$0 -$50
$51 -$100
$101 -$200
$201 -$300
$301 -$400
$401 -$500
Number Percent
66
35
12
13
5
2
49.3%
26.1%
9.0%
9.7%
3.7%
1.5%
0.7%
Sixty -three municipalities charged a fee for some access to
the data (see Table 2). The fee structures ranged from a custom-
ized quote for the requested data, prices for standard packages of
data delivered on CD, or prices per layer requested. Among the
towns charging fees, the prices ranged from $5 (Bourne) to $453
(Mansfield), with an average of $102. Under the Public Records
Law, fees must be limited to the actual cost of duplication, and
any "per hour charge for ... processing may not be greater than
the prorated hourly wage of the lowest paid employee who is
capable of performing the task." In addition, the regulation urges,
"in the interest of open government, all records custodians are
strongly urged to waive the fees associated with access to public
records." In a section specifically regarding copying GIS data, the
Secretary of the Commonwealth provides the guidance that "Fees
assessed for these records cannot serve as a deterrent for access or
as a means of generating revenue" (Galvin 2009: 3).
LICENSING RESTRICTIONS AND
DATA POLICIES
Forty-two disclaimers, release agreements, policies, and other
documents collected from city Web sites of the state's 20 largest
cities and obtained through the data request were reviewed. These
fell into three main categories: short disclaimers contained on Web
sites or order forms, longer licenses and release agreements, and
two memorandums of understanding. After a preliminary review,
eight common provisions of these documents were identified;
these are summarized as follows (see Table 3) with the number
of policies in which they appear.
Table 3. Common data license or agreement provisions
Provision Number Percent
Data provided without warrantee 34
Municipality indemnified and held harmless 22
Restrictions on reuse 14
No claim to data updates 13
Data not for legal purposes 12
Request for credit on data products 11
Request for disclaimer on resulting data 8
products
Right to on -site inspection
Total
79.1%
51.2%
32.6%
30.2%
27.9%
25.6%
18.6%
2 4.7%
42 100.0%
A group of data release agreements contained nearly identical
formats, with the exception of an item concerning restrictions on
reuse that only appeared on three. In addition, Beverly, Brookline,
and Weymouth used a memorandum of understanding to request
copies of derivative data products from users. This section will
discuss four of these common provisions: indemnity statements,
credit and disclaimer requirements, restrictions on redistribution,
and on -site inspection.
Twenty of the statements require the recipient of the data to
indemnify or hold harmless the municipality In negotiating licenses
for data, the MIT Libraries said the university seeks to avoid this
kind of language because of the potential to create liability. Possible
violations could include unwitting violation of copyright, a liability
produced by reselling the data, or claims made by representations
related to financial transactions (Finnie- Duranceau 2010).
Ten of the documents required a credit to the city to appear
on derived data products and seven of these also requested a dis-
claimer. Although a reasonable request for conventional maps, this
type of disclaimer may have to be displayed on secondary pages on
a Web site or application. For example, Beverly's memorandum
of understanding requires a 59 -word disclaimer to appear on any
derivative maps in at least an eight -point type font. This disclaimer
takes up a sizable portion of a smartphone screen, which might
be required if the data were reused in a smartphone application.
Eleven of the documents contained restrictions on reuse.
Three of these allowed redistribution with written consent of the
municipality. Reading's license contained a provision discourag-
ing redistribution, urging data users to refer others to the city to
obtain the most accurate data. Finally, Boston specifically granted
a limited right for third parties to "have and use the GIS Data
solely to assist the Licensed User's business needs and for no other
purpose." Several of the licenses restricted reuse of the data to the
"internal purposes" of the requester. For example, this provision
appears in Chelsea's agreement:
URISA Journal • Goodspeed 27
"Digital data received are to be used solely for internal purposes.
Secondary distribution of these data is not supported. Data is
intended for the sole use of the Reguestor It is not to be distrib-
uted or resold to other agencies, organizations, companies or
individuals without the prior express written consent of the City
Manager. Data may be enhanced, analyzed, manipulated or
output by the duly authorized agents of the Requestor but only
for the purposes and use of the Reguestor. "(City of Chelsea 2009)
It is not clear whether such provisions would restrict orga-
nizations whose "internal" purposes included making the data
available to users in modified or limited formats. These provisions
could produce a chilling effect, dissuading innovative reuses such
as interactive Web sites, journalistic information, and applica-
tions. Cities or towns that want to encourage reuse may avoid
this restriction.
Two documents provided the municipality a right of on -site
inspection to see that the terms of the license were being followed:
"The Licensee shall agree to allow an agent from the Town of
Greenfield to an on -site inspection, if the Town determines
that it is necessary, to ensure that the Licensee is complying
with the terms of this License." (Town of Greenfield 2010)
• "The Agency agrees to on -site inspections for the duration of
the use of the Data by agents of Yarmouth to ensure that the
Agency is in compliance with the terms of this agreement."
(Town of Yarmouth 2010)
Both licenses prohibit use of the data other than a specific
use designated on the agreement and also prohibit redistribution
of the data to any other party.
Finally, Amherst has chosen to share data through ArcGIS.
com, a Web site designed to allow users to share geospatial data
and services. The Web site provides a place for data owners to
indicate the data owner and any disclaimers. However, it also
required users to agree to two Terms of Service, one for all Web
sites of the parent company (ESRI) and one for the ArcGIS.com
Web site. This Web site allows users to define the copyright and
restrictions that apply to any data they upload. However, this
approach may result in requiring citizens to agree to a private
company's lengthy terms of use to access the public records of a
municipality. In addition, absent a clear description on the data,
the content may be eligible for resale and licensing under the
ESRI Terms of Use "Commercial License" provision. Finally, the
site works to complement ESRI's proprietary mapping software.
For example, clicking to download the public data downloads
an XML file containing data in the proprietary "pkinfo" format.
Advanced users can extract the URL to the data with a simple
text viewer; however, others will have to use the company's free
viewer or mapping software to access the data. This is akin to a
photograph- sharing site showing only thumbnails on a Web site,
requiring one to use the site's proprietary image viewer to access
the full - quality photographs.
PUBLIC SAFETY AND PRIVACY
The Massachusetts Public Records Law exempts a number of
categories of data from public disclosure, including personally
identified medical information, standardized examination an-
swers, records of active law- enforcement investigations, among
others. This list includes the following exemption for disclosure
for data that, if released, could endanger public safety:
"(n) records including, but not limited to, blueprints, plans,
policies, procedures and schematic drawings, which relate to
internal layout and structural elements, security measures,
emergency preparedness, threat or vulnerability assessments, or
any other records relating to the security or safety of persons,
buildings, structures, facilities, utilities, transportation or other
infrastructure located within the commonwealth, the disclosure
of which, in the reasonable judgment of the custodian, subject
to review by the supervisor of public records under subsection
(b) of section I0 of chapter 66, is likely to jeopardize public
safety" (Public Records Law)
The study could not determine the full extent of how the
public - safety considerations were affecting access to public data.
The location of wastewater- treatment plants did trigger several
responses. The towns of Concord, Falmouth, and Natick said as a
matter of policy they did not disclose information about the water
utility system. Salem's standard GIS data layer listing noted the
city engineer would release the following layers on a "case -by -case
basis ": fire hydrants, sewer, water distribution system, drainage/
stormwater system.
Copyright
Two towns claimed data they possessed were exempt from disclo-
sure under the Public Records Law because of copyright. Sherborn
wrote claiming Boston Edison owned the copyright of its parcel
data. Lincoln's parcels were created by a private organization and
then licensed back to the city for use for planning purposes. The
town now is exploring creating its own parcel layer. The Secretary
of the Commonwealth's guide specifically addresses intellectual
property concerns, instructing that copyright should not pre-
empt the Public Records Law (Galvin 2009). The guide instructs
government custodians to release the data with a warning that
its contents may be subject to intellectual property protections.
CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY
RECOMMENDATIONS
Statewide Data Policy
A clear argument exists for why municipalities should provide data
to its citizens. The Public Records Law covers computer records,
and legal restrictions on the data may prohibit or chill desired uses
such as journalistic analysis, new applications and Web sites, and
28 URISA Journal • Vol. 23, No. 2 • 2011
derivative analysis. Some data simply must be available to hold
government accountable and support a range of positive uses.
However, pragmatic considerations mean the municipalities who
create data may not be well suited to manage it. Several towns
possessed only badly out -of -date data or possessed data but were
unsure how to access the GIS system and extract data because
staff with these skills had been laid off. Many municipalities,
with populations of a few thousand or less, have limited or part -
time professional staff. Addressing these problems and ensuring
the sustainable creation and management of property data is an
ongoing concern in Massachusetts.
The Commonwealth's Office of Geographic Information
(_ MassGIS) Strategic Plan for Massachusetts's Spatial Data Infra-
structure identified the availability of parcel data as a problem for
policymakers concerned with infrastructure, emergency response,
public health, and other issues (Massachusetts Geographic Infor-
mation Council Strategic Plan Steering Committee 2007). This
plan resulted in a limited grant program to encourage data devel-
opment and the promulgation of parcel data standards. However,
without mandates or incentives, not all towns participate in the
program. Northampton, with a sophisticated local GIS program,
does not participate in the statewide parcel program. In addition,
local towns have no incentive to adopt MassGIS's standards
for how this data should be structured. The lack of this type of
coordination limits the ability of data users to create analysis or
work across town boundaries. In addition, despite advances in
technology, only a tiny number of towns supported direct down-
loading, and many continue to burn CDs although other means
are possible with the spread of broadband Internet. MassGIS, on
the other hand, provides both direct data downloads as well as
data through a Web - mapping service (WMS) API.
The steps necessary to fully resolve this issue are beyond the
scope of this paper. The Massachusetts experience with parcel
data suggests that data intermediaries, such as Regional Planning
Agencies and MassGIS, may be better equipped to establish data
standards and provide data to users in raw formats and through
technically innovative APIs. However, parcels and zoning are
the result of administrative processes conducted by the towns.
So long as municipalities perform these functions, they must be
directly regulated and funded to create and update data that meet
statewide standards.
MUNICIPAL POLICY
RECOMMENDATIONS
Municipalities that have GIS datasets should make them available
for free, online, and with legal restrictions designed to balance
normative values of transparency with privacy and control of
the data. These recommendations differ somewhat from existing
policy templates, including the Open Data Consortium Project's
Model Data Distribution Policy (2003). Given the variety of data
types and government agencies, any data policy or infrastructure
should be adapted to local needs and conditions.
The data prices found in this study were both insufficient for
cost recovery but high enough to dissuade individuals or non-
profit users. Municipalities should eliminate the fees and focus
on developing alternative revenue sources for GIS and reducing
the costs of satisfying requests. The topic of whether governments
should charge for GIS data has been extensively discussed in the
GIS community. To explore the issue and provide a model data -
sharing policy, a diverse group of public and private GIS profes-
sionals formed the Open Data Consortium Project. According
to this group, few municipalities make money from data sales.
The group suggests GIS operations could be supported through
surcharges on increased economic development, increases in tax
revenue enabled by access to more precise information, or specific
taxes or fees (Joffe 2010a). The Massachusetts Public Records Act
restricts fees for public access to data to the costs of duplication.
Distributing data through the Web, versus through nailed CDs
or order systems, would reduce the cost of duplication further. In
the early period of the World Wide Web, posting GIS data files
to municipal Web sites was rare for a variety of practical reasons.
Widespread adoption of broadband and declining hosting costs
have eliminated technical restrictions on online data sharing.
Increasingly, as Davies (2010) shows, diverse users are seeking
raw government data for research, analysis, or development of
public applications.
Sixty-five municipalities provided data through GIS data
viewers. These tools, which operate in the browser window, allow
visitors to view GIS data. Sometimes they contain other functions
such as generating a list of abutters, printing a map, or adding
annotations. Only two of these viewers, operated by Amherst and
Boston, allow users to extract data in original GIS data formats.'
In addition, many of these were not linked to from the primary
city or town Web site and were discovered only in response to
data request or through Internet searches of primary vendors.'' If
citizens can find them, these viewers serve the needs of some visi-
tors; however, they do not allow the multiple uses described that
require access to raw data. Because their data extraction functions
often are confusing or difficult to find, all municipalities should
post links to commonly requested GIS data in both standard ESRI
and open formats such as KML on a normal page on municipal
Web sites. This approach, adopted by Northampton, can reduce
staff time needed to satisfy requests and respond to the growing
community of citizens interested in raw GIS data.
Finally, municipalities should place legal restrictions on
public data that sensibly balance competing values. Some of
the provisions, such as reminders GIS data are not considered
legal property definitions, or provided without warranty, may
not have negative effects on data reuse. The Public Records Law
could be amended to make statements of "indemnification and
hold harmless" unnecessary. However, some of the practices may
have unintended negative effects. A requirement that derivative
products contain a small credit may be a reasonable way to re-
mind users of the original source. As discussed previously, lengthy
disclaimers may impede the development of innovative Web sites
or mobile applications. Most troubling, restrictions on reuse or
the right of on -site inspection are contrary to the spirit of the law.
URISA Journal • Goodspeed 29
Municipalities should not restrict the purposes for which public
data can be used. Users using out -of -date data can be avoided
by bundling data files with clear dates and perhaps following the
lead of Reading and including text encouraging users to obtain
recent data from the municipality.
FROM PUBLIC RECORDS TO
OPEN GOVERNMENT
Citing utilitarian philosophy, government reformers have
advocated for laws that provide access to government records
through public records and freedom of information laws. These
laws establish the presumption that all records, except certain
types, should be available to citizens on written request. New
technologies provide the capability to automate and enhance this
practice, enabling citizens to e -mail requests and governments to
send electronic records. In the study, although the default practice
still was mailed CDs for most municipalities, many were happy
to send the files by e -mail after this option was suggested in the
request. Beyond automating the existing request -based public
records paradigm, the Internet makes possible a new paradigm
based on proactive disclosure of government information: open
government.
Changes to the federal FOIA in the 1990s and recent fed-
eral initiatives also follow this new approach. In response to the
expansion of the Internet, Congress enacted the Electronic Free-
dom of Information Act Amendments (E -FOIA) in 1996. With
the intention to encourage proactive disclosure and reduce the
number of FOIA requests, the law mandated that federal agencies
post documents commonly requested by citizens and information
about how to submit a FOIA request on their Web sites. In a re-
view conducted in 2007, the nonprofit National Security Archive
found only one in five federal agencies had posted the required
documents and FOIA Web sites were confusing, disorganized, or
nonexistent (National Security Archive 2007). After his election,
President Barack Obama has rhetorically connected efforts to cre-
ate new online sources for government data with reforms to how
FOIA requests are handled by federal agencies (Obama 2008).
A similar approach should be taken by municipalities to
make electronic records public. The simplest step, posting data
without privacy or security concerns to a Web site, allows citizens
to access the files without the hassle and expense of submitting
a formal request. The request process may incur more expenses
than can be offset through legally allowed fees. During this study,
although most requests received a response with minimal effort,
many were routed to several departments or triggered responses
from city attorneys, incurring real costs for taxpayers.
Other researchers have begun to explore the different com-
ponents of a transparency paradigm adapted to new technology.
Scholars have urged the development of government technical
systems that can be opened to citizens as "FOIA 2.0" (Kubicek
2008). Legal scholars have approached the issue from the per-
spective of tensions created with individual privacy or inadequate
conceptions of public records in a digital world. Solove (2002)
argues that new technology means we must rethink the regulation
of public records and proposes limiting access and uses of certain
information rather than making public records unavailable to the
public. Other scholars argued laws should be amended to take into
consideration unique characteristics of electronic records, such as
e -mail and file metadata (Holcomb and Isaac 2008).
New technology may mean that summary statistics from
previously restricted databases could be easily computed, and will
continue to introduce new issues about how to ensure electronic
data and records are organized, preserved, and made transparent
in ways that balance competing principles. To navigate these
tensions, Dawes (2010) proposes two metaprinciples: steward-
ship and usefulness. Stewardship includes attention to accuracy,
validity, security, and preservation of data, and the idea that "every
public official ... is responsible for handling information with
care." Usefulness "recognizes that government information is a
valuable asset" and promotes access to and use of government
information for a variety of purposes (Dawes 2010). Although this
study concerns three datasets determined a priori to be useful, this
issue is nontrivial as cities seek to decide which data they publish
proactively. As observed earlier, transparency can directly advance
the accuracy and validity of data, components of stewardship.
Although government data retains a political dimension,
increasingly data resources are functioning as infrastructure, a
resource that can serve a wide range of public and private purposes.
In response to a request submitted under a longstanding state law,
the majority of Massachusetts municipalities responded in the
spirit of the Public Records Law, offering to send the requested
data. The evolving discussion about Federal government trans-
parency suggests that shifting to an open government paradigm
for Massachusetts GIS data will require changing norms and
practices at the local and statewide levels. Local diversity means
it may be difficult for state policy-makers to mandate proactive
disclosure of useful data, (to use Dawes' principle) as communi-
ties had different data depending on their unique infrastructure,
geography, and history. In the Federal government, E -FOIA
mandates disclosure of often- requested data but is not upheld
consistently. The Obama Administration has mandated Federal
agencies contribute "high- value" datasets to the Data.gov Web
site, but the resulting datasets have been criticized for not be-
ing the most useful to citizens. Despite the greater availability
of some data, some groups have gone to extraordinary lengths
to obtain government data they believe to be more useful than
what is posted on official Web sites (Long and Burnham 2010).
This study documented both problems with compliance with
the existing public records law and a range of issues affecting ac-
cess to information not fully addressed by the existing law such
as distribution technology, costs, licensing, and data structure
and management. Open government will require not only mov-
ing beyond a narrowly conceived "right to view" records but also
an ongoing discussion of a range of practical, ethical, and legal
considerations such as file formats and distribution technology,
balancing openness with privacy and public safety considerations,
30 URISA Journal • Vol. 23, No. 2 • 2011
and appropriate data policies and licenses. Together, the result will
be a new paradigm of transparency, achieving greater government
accountability and producing new value for the government and
the public alike.
About the Author
Robert Goodspeed is a Ph.D. student in Urban Information
Systems at the MIT Department of Urban Studies and
Planning. Previously, he worked as a research analyst for the
Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council and earned a
Master's degree in Community Planning from the University
of Maryland in 2008.
Corresponding Address:
MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Room 9 -415
Cambridge, MA 02139
rgoodspe @mit.edu
Phone: (202) 321 -2743
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the municipal officials and in-
terviewees for generously offering time and information. The fall
2010 teaching staff of MIT class 6.805, Ethics and Law on the
Electronic Frontier, provided valuable feedback: Hal Abelson,
Mike Fischer, Danny Weitzner, Les Perelman, and Don Unger. In
addition, three anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments
that improved the paper's argument and clarity.
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Endnotes
1 For example, an `Apps for Democracy: Community Edition"
competition hosted by the District of Columbia resulted in
applications that mapped bicycle infrastructure, delivered
real -time crime and other alerts to cell phones, and mapped
neighborhood amenities. Data retrieved from http: / /www.
appsfordemocracy. org/application-directory/.
2 These include the federal Data.gov, city data Web sites New
York City, Portland OR, Seattle WA, Washington DC, and
similar efforts in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
3 For a discussion of technical considerations of public data
portal software, see Robert Goodspeed, Open Government
Strategy for the City of Boston, available online and from
the author.
4 Available online at http: // www.sec.state.ma.us /ele /eleclk/
clkidx.htm.
5 The request was sent on Monday, November 8th, or 29 days
before the close of the data collection period on December 7,
2010. As described later, because 59 municipalities contacted
me on Tuesday, November 9th, I have reason to believe most
received the letter within two days.
6 This survey asked whether the city or town "has geographic
information system (GIS) data and software used by munici-
pal staff?" and "If you do, if the municipality receives requests
for GIS data do you have a standard licensing agreement,
order form, or pricing policy ?"
7 Adapted from Davies 2010, p. 3.
8 The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) is an
"interagency committee that promotes the coordinated
development, use, sharing, and dissemination of geospatial
data on a national basis," and has generated influential poli-
cies and practices for GIS data for the federal government
and U.S. government agencies in general.
9 See www.patientslikeme.com.
10 Such as DropBox or YouSendIt.
11 A searchable directory of links to these online viewers is
available on the author's Web site at http: / /web.mit.edu/
rgoodspe /www /.
12 See Appendix B for URLs and data layers available.
13 Many were discovered through a domain - specific search of
the hosting server of a major consultant that provides GIS
services to dozens of Massachusetts municipalities.
32 URISA Journal • Vol. 23, No. 2 • 2011