The threat posed to the bicycling community by 'The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill 2016'

[Prashanth Chengi]

Hi all,

You've all probably read or heard about the newly proposed Geospatial Information Regulation Bill 2016.
It's severely short-sighted and pretty much makes all kinds of map/GPS use without prior permission/license illegal.
We only have till June 3 2016, to send our comments.  They need individual emails, so I'm not starting a change.org petition. My blog post explains in greater detail the consequences of this bill, but here's the gist:

1. You cannot access any geospatial information within India, without obtaining a license.  This means you cannot download the GPS course for that brevet you wanted to ride, without breaking the law.

2. You cannot disseminate or share geospatial data.  You cannot create a GPS course and share it. You cannot even post your ride data on strava/runkeeper etc,  or share it on fb, without breaking the law.

3. Applies to resident as well as non resident Indians. 

4. This is not just at a service provider level (Facebook, Google), but expects individual citizens to apply for licences after paying the fees, to simply use GPS.

5. Imprisonment up to 7 years and fines from 10 lakhs to 100 crores for the above listed 'crimes'!!!

Further reading:
http://prashanthchengi.livejournal.com/75262.html

Call for action: Send your comments by email to js...@nic.in,  before June 3, 2016. Please share as widely as possible.

/Prashanth

[Opendro]

How does it work for the phones with GPS then? Some more details on the bill will be helpful.

[Ashok Kumar S]

Yeah, my first guess is that the interpretation of the bill is perhaps not correct. For the phones and navigation devices, the manufacturers may have to take the license, not sure how the end user licensing as mentioned in the posting is going to work.

--
biking conversations on the world famous "Bangalore Bikers Club" :)
 
are you a part of the bicycle racing scene?
Visit www.bangalorebicyclechampionships.com for more details
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Bangalore Bikers Club" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to bangalore-bike...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Thanks and regards,
Ashok Kumar S.

[Prashanth Chengi]

The bill is overly loose, and therefore quite dangerous, Open. It's not just restricted to GPS, but geospatial data itself. If you download a GPS course (which is geospatial data) onto your laptop, without ever even using it, either or a phone or a real GPS device, you are still breaking the law.  All citizens will have to have licenses, henceforth, if they want to access any kind of geospatial data (even via apps such as ola/uber/facebook checkin etc), and this is really ridiculous. 

/Prashanth

--

[Prashanth Chengi]

Sorry, no. This is not only about big companies and manufacturers, but individual users. Chapter I, section 2 j describes what 'person' means:

Person”  includes;-  i.     an     individual,     ii.     a     company,     iii.     a     firm,     iv.     a     trust,     v.     an   association   of   persons   or   a   body   of   individuals,   whether   incorporated or not, vi.      every  artificial  juridical  person,  not  falling  within  any  of  the  preceding  sub-clauses, and vii. any agency, office or branch owned or controlled by any of the above persons mentioned in the preceding sub-clauses 

Chapter 2, Section 3 explicitly states that all persons (clarified by definition above) need special permission/licence to use geospatial data. Without the permission.  It's quite clear; it's not manufacturers and app makers, but common people. You and I included.

http://mha.nic.in/sites/upload_files/mha/files/GeospatialBill_05052016_eve.pdf

[Ashok Kumar S]

If what you say is true, then it is better to take it up in a bigger forum than just cycling community, as even smartphone based navigation systems(including google maps) or anti theft tracking systems etc cannot be used by public. 

[Prashanth Chengi]

Ultimately, we need more people to write to the government. The bicycling community is one which criss-crosses with many others, and since I'm only part of this forum, I chose to share it here, apart from my own facebook page.  Please feel free to share it across whatever other forums you see fit. This is indeed an issue that affects all people, not just bicyclists. Yes, smartphone navigation and anti theft systems are indeed areas which fall foul of this proposed bill. 

/Prashanth

[vivek]

If what you say is true then most of the smartphone users will be breaking the law.

Where do we send comments for this? I think it is better to create a petition and take signatures and spread beyond the cycling community.

Regards,

Vivek

[Ashok Kumar S]

I am 100% sure it is an interpretation issue. This has not been illegal in any other country I know of. So, very unlikely that it is going to be that way here.

[george...@gmail.com]

It is getting discussed in Datameet too. You can check the last fews threads in the group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/datameet

More details here: https://datameet.hackpad.com/The-Geospatial-Information-Regulation-Bill-2016-zJwgcQaIvBq

Regards,

George

[Hari Krishna]

So will tourist maps become illegal in India as well?

[mkonchady]

The purpose of the bill is supposedly to

“To regulate the acquisition, dissemination, publication and distribution of geospatial information of India which is likely to affect the security, sovereignty and integrity of India”.

I think the key is the latter part of the sentence. Acquiring, using, and distributing a local bike route is not going to affect the security of India.

The bill should be  more specific about the type of geospatial information that will be regulated.

--Manu Konchady

[Amarnath]

More information is available on http://savethemap.in/ (similar to save the internet campaign) and they had held an open house today at CIS.

As currently I am not in Bangalore, I am unaware of developments of how the community is trying to respond to GoI. Following @savethemap might help.

[Prashanth Chengi]

Not sure if the govt would consider petition numbers. They want comments on jsis at nic.in

/Prashanth

[S W Holmes]

Can you share the email template? I'll right away send them the email.
If required I can setup a site like save the Internet, save the map site doesn't consists of template.

[Hari Krishna]

Is there any update on this bill? What happened to it? The June 3 deadline has long passed.

On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 8:56 PM, S W Holmes <funwithm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can you share the email template? I'll right away send them the email.
If required I can setup a site like save the Internet, save the map site doesn't consists of template.