Government Engagement with Commercial Remote Sensing Companies: A Framework for Evaluating Public Data Buys

摘要

As the commercial remote sensing industry continues to grow, government agencies are looking for opportunities to take advantage of the new and relatively inexpensive data provided by these entities through the development of public–private partnerships and data purchases. However, these arrangements typically require that governments accept some limitations on data sharing, contrasting with the existing norm of free and open access to government satellite data. Data access agreements can be complex, and their exact terms and conditions can significantly affect the overall benefits of the arrangement to the government and society more broadly. This article presents a framework for defining and evaluating these data access agreements, and demonstrates how the framework could be applied using case studies of previous public–private partnerships and data purchases.