The tools of GI Science deal with geospatial information in which spatial relationships are the fundamental data. Fundamental data is that which relates to geolocation or spatial data that will permit the mapping of any object in terrestrial space. But, GI Science may also handle a diverse range of personal information from the truly ‘personal’ ones through to those of a more general nature – age, gender, height, home address, social security number, marital status, religion and so on. By its very nature, the tools of GI Science allow these kinds of information to be collected, manipulated, displayed, and transmitted cheaply, easily and speedily. But the very capabilities of geospatial tools in information analysis have raised a multitude of novel and interesting personal privacy issues.

The challenge for geographers and geospatial scientists is to accommodate the privacy-invasive with the privacyenhancing attributes of geospatial science as summarised in Table 1 below. If these are attempted in an ethical manner then it augurs well for geospatial information systems and the professionals who work in the industry. Dobson (1998) promotes the view that geo-information in combination with personal information clearly poses a privacy threat. However, the counter argument is that there is a tension between the two fundamental values of privacy on the one hand and the public’s right to know on the other. For example, the differences between satellites monitoring a farmer’s use of water and the public’s acceptance of CCtv and video cameras in shopping malls, buses and taxis, city streets and in dorms and apartments.

Geospatial technologies include GIS as a mapping tool for decision-making through to those technologies that amass data by spatial attributes including global positioning systems (GPS), and transponders and other intelligent computer chips embedded in some devices that can report location as well as an identity. The latter are in a class of intelligent spatial technologies that can declare both personal information as well as locational and devicespecific information in response to a poll by another device either in a preestablished relationship or to a new, soon to be established, relationship.

Geospatial technologies are in daily use and have heightened personal privacy concerns related to locational information. For instance, in using geospatial technologies, an apparent legal fallacy may have arisen, if only by accident. The idea is that if there is a legal right to do something then it follows that it must be the right thing to do. So, if it is legal to install CCtv anywhere, it is permissible to do so despite the fact that constructing too many of these devices might become too intrusive.

Also, if it is permissible to undertake data aggregation activities using a number of databases, then it is lawful to do so. But really, the issue is that the legal right must only be the starting point rather than the end point for justifying one’s actions. The fact that something is legal does not mean it is either right or a wise thing to do. Thus, data taken out of context – acontextual data – and used in that sense may produce Also, if it is permissible to undertake data aggregation activities using a number of databases, then it is lawful to do so. But really, the issue is that the legal right must only be the starting point rather than the end point for justifying one’s actions. The fact that something is legal does not mean it is either right or a wise thing to do. Thus, data taken out of context – acontextual data – and used in that sense may produce

This is where ethical questions are raised and which should be foremost in the thinking and practice of GI scientists. Some would like to consider ethics as a continuum in which there is both a duality of a right and a wrong way of undertaking activities as well as ethics as a way of dealing with a right way and a better way of doing things. In equitable jurisdictions and civil cases there may be a claim to a right but it is the one who has the better claim that often wins out. Today the right to be left alone is being vigorously defended and there is resistance to increased surveillance in parts of our private lives. But it seems that the real threat is the creeping acquiescence to all sorts of intrusions without the accompanying public debate, information and education. It used to be that when a video camera was installed, say in the computer lab, the spectre of George Orwell’s 1984 and “Big Brother is watching you” was raised (Orwell 1990).