Darja Lihteneger
Project Manager - Data Centres and INSPIRE Implementation
European Environment Agency
Denmark

Abstract
Use of Metadata to Express Licencing Information and Data Policy Conditions

Co-Author: Christian Ansorge, Project Manager - SEIS and INSPIRE implementation, European Environment Agency

The European Union, INSPIRE Directive (2007/2/EC) aims to establish an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe which is built upon the Member States' infrastructures for spatial information. Data policies governing the access to and sharing of spatial data sets and services are part of the spatial data infrastructures. In addition, the INSPIRE Directive requires that certain information about the constraints related to access and use of spatial data sets and services is provided within the corresponding metadata. INSPIRE Metadata Regulation details metadata elements for this purpose and provides guidelines on the type of information that should be provided. INSPIRE geo-portal harvests and represents metadata provided by the Member States and other cooperating countries. As the legislative and technical framework is already in place, the practical implementation shows a variety of licencing approaches and different ways of describing licencing information, constraints or conditions for access and use of spatial data sets and services which might cause difficulties to the users understanding those conditions. One of the most representative issues is that there is no designated element in the metadata profile to provide specific information on the conditions under which the data set or service can be used. As alternative, INSPIRE proposes to use among others the metadata elements “Conditions applying to access and use"‚ “Limitations on public access" which are partly free text elements and used in a variety of ways. The presentation aims at providing the outcomes of an evaluation how these metadata elements are used in practice and if the information provided is consistent, mostly based on the metadata information provided through the INSPIRE geo-portal.