Understanding and Designing Enterprise Architectures

Sharing Secure GIS Data

—Calvin Reed, PAR Government Systems

Most Geographic Information System (GIS) data providers, distributors, and custodians have difficulties protecting their data from being copied and accessed by unauthorized users or unintended recipients.

This presentation will explore the following techniques for providing a mechanism to distribute GIS data to a limited number of individuals and/or for a limited duration:

• Watermarking to copyright and certify the authenticity of the GIS data
• Encryption of feature sets to protect GIS data from unauthorized uses
• Time stamped keys to limit the period of accessibility
• Serialized keys to limit the extent of risk.
• Custom GIS data formats and interfaces (Establish a chain of custody; Trace ownership and track data modifications)

This presentation will discuss each of the techniques and how they might be utilized as the level of authentication and protection warrants.