Security and privacy for geospatial data: concepts and research directions

Geospatial data play a key role in a wide spectrum of critical data management applications, such as disaster and emergency management, environmental monitoring, land and city planning, and military operations, often requiring the coordination among diverse organizations, their data repositories, and users with different responsibilities. Although a variety of models and techniques are available to manage, access and share geospatial data, very little attention has been paid to addressing security concerns, such as access control, security and privacy policies, and the development of secure and in particular interoperable GIS applications. The objective of this paper is to discuss the technical challenges raised by the unique requirements of secure geospatial data management and to suggest a comprehensive framework for security and privacy for geospatial data and GIS. Such a framework is the first coherent architectural approach to the problem of security and privacy for geospatial data.