Foundation/AGM2024/Election to Board/Answers and manifestos/Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
Handling Legal and Political Challenges
The OSMF sometimes receives legal threats or faces political pressure due to controversial topics or disputed territories in the map data. How would you deal with these situations? Are you prepared for potential travel restrictions or government pressure because of the nature of OpenStreetMap data?
Craig Allan - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
Board policy is to send a standard template letter that explains the “on the ground” principle and the importance of the inputs from local communities. It also explains that any user can substitute their own boundaries when making maps. I have sent many of these letters. I am aware of travel restrictions. Currently I would be cautious about travelling to two major Asian countries as they have legal sanctions on mapping or representing ‘false’ boundaries.
Brazil Singh - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
Dealing with legal threats or political pressure is a serious responsibility, especially given the open and global nature of OpenStreetMap. If such situations arise, my first priority would be to ensure that we adhere to the core values of OSM—transparency, neutrality, and openness. These principles should guide our response to any external pressures. I would immediately consult with legal experts and those within the community who have experience in handling such issues. Their insights would be crucial in understanding the implications and navigating the situation carefully. It’s important to keep the community informed, especially when it comes to sensitive issues like legal threats or political pressure. I would advocate for open communication, ensuring that the community understands what’s happening and has a say in how we respond. In the face of political pressure, I’d work with the Board to develop mitigation strategies, such as exploring alternative hosting options, anonymizing contributions from sensitive areas, or engaging with local communities to understand their perspectives and concerns. I’m fully aware that dealing with disputed territories and controversial topics can lead to personal risks, including travel restrictions or government pressure. I’m prepared to face these challenges because I believe in the importance of maintaining an open and accurate map that serves everyone, regardless of political or territorial disputes. If it came to a situation where my own ability to travel or operate was restricted due to my role in OSM, I would handle it with the same commitment to OSMF’s mission, seeking support from the Board and the community to ensure that the work continues uninterrupted.
Courtney Cook Williamson - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
I have no problem holding up the principles of the board so long as they are legally defensible. As a result I would rely heavily on legal expertise in any such matter.
Maurizio Napolitano - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
OpenStreetMap is a global project that serves the public good and this is the motivation because I don't have any kind of fear to move. I understand that handling sensitive topics like disputed territories requires a careful, balanced approach. It’s important to align with international regulations and engage in open dialogue with the relevant authorities to develop solutions based on who has legal jurisdiction. I am prepared for potential travel restrictions, but one non-negotiable aspect is my connection to my wife’s family in China, which I must prioritize. On this matter, I cannot compromise OSMF’s interests over my family’s needs.
Can Ünen - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
Although it did not reflect towards OSM and discussions mainly stayed within the country, Turkey also has quite strict laws and national policies towards the creation and redistribution of national geographical data. So I am pretty aware of strict governmental policies in place, or can cause potential dispute or controversy. Even without those strict policies, the open nature of our database can cause barriers on worry-free utilization of OSM by government organizations. However I’ve also seen that most of the time the representatives of those organizations are keen to explore the potential benefits beyond those barriers and explore ways of working together. I would prefer to seek for opening dialogue channels to see if the issue has any workarounds, but if not, I am prepared for the pressure.
Michael Montani - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
I am fully aware of those challenges and I happened to face similar situations (even related to OSM) during my work at the UN. In particular, I can cite when, during the UN Maps conference in 2024, Sarah and I got approached by a member of a national cartographic agency that was genuinely interested in adopting OSM in her/his country. Just after s/he got to know more about how OSM is a project that is both uncontrollable (you cannot restrict edits or areas) and ungovernable (unless by its community), s/he suddenly took a doubtful and defensive stance. The return on investment for big public sectors in terms of visibility by adopting OSM and supporting local communities in their countries is really high. S/he left still doubtful, but still genuinely interested in understanding more.
It is pretty clear we cannot refrain OSM contributors (of any kind) to upload military or politically sensible information to the database from anywhere and basically, once an information gets submitted, it stays tracked on the OSM historical data, even if it gets removed or changed afterwards. From my experience, most of these data users all focus on removal of information from the basemap, even if we can expect to have more knowledgeable individuals able to read raw OSM data like its history. Notably in the past there were some political entities asking the OSMF to remove information on demand.
In my opinion this comes down to the ethics of open data (or more generally open information). Maps have been, since their creation, a military tool. They are inherently scareful, because both you or any opponent can visualize "permanent" data in a clear way. But at the end of the day, ideally you could not stop any person to publish geospatial coordinates, videos or pictures on any social, communication or whistleblowing media. This kind of requests are asked as if they were specifically about OSM, but they are in reality much more general than that. Nowadays information just flows, and it is on users / sensors / bots to publish correct and possibly unharmful information. OSM, being a platform hosting open data, cannot be responsible of what the users are inserting, just like Wikipedia is not responsible for users inserting the very same information in a textual form.
Most of this comes down to diplomacy. OSM has some clear non-negotiable standpoints: you cannot (and must not) control mapping activity of any contributor at any time, unless it is vandalism and harming the database. Furthermore, OSM does not accept any interference from governments on changing its data after threats. Despite this could seem like a bold setting for OSM, it is actually pretty good as it ensures OSM to be an impartial platform to any kind of geopolitical threat, and is not giving preference to one or the other side of the world. At the same time, it is important to explain clearly and well to prospective data users how OSM works. I can understand scared reactions, but it is also important to explain that data users are not obliged to leverage OSM data integrally, if they do not wish to. If they do not like the boundaries, they can simply download other OSM data (like road networks and any other topographic feature) and overlay their own boundaries on their products.
As of boundaries, I often had to deal with the UN authoritative boundaries database in particular for the production of some SDG maps. These are the boundaries that get discussed by the international community and are (supposedly!) accepted globally. All the first level administrative boundaries (countries) are traced, but some are classified as contended, under discussion or else. Already at the second level administrative boundaries (regions), some countries do not have data, as it is responsibility of national cartographic agencies to insert it. It is not uncommon for countries to claim to have different boundaries than those accepted by the international community. Furthermore, UN boundaries are not publicly available over zoom scale 6, to avoid political issues with the representation of very detailed boundaries on public maps.
Regarding OSMF, and especially LCCWG, this has some serious consequences like the impossibility for prospective communities willing to form a local chapter to even be able to register an NGO, as national governments may ask to check the data they produce or contribute to. Not to speak about countries in which contributing geospatial information is illegal at all. In my opinion, some of these issues may be solved by clearly explaining OSM at a diplomatic level using some of the points above, and helping local chapters in high-level discussions.
Eventually, I am aware of potential travel restrictions. This happens to some consultants within the UN Secretariat as well, for example when they happen to visit Somalia and subsequently get restricted access to the US, as we are not entitled for UN laissez-passer. In a way, the UN Secretariat or its subsidiaries could facilitate the entry of consultant in a country by interacting with visa offices. It happened to me for example to be able to enter Mali because I got a "visa letter" from MINUSMA offices, but as a civilian the Embassy was not even answering to phone calls and mails (to be frank it is reasonable as they were in a full coup d'etat), but in that way I was able to reach Bamako to deliver an OSM training to the national cartographic agency of Mali. I am ok in accepting travel restrictions anyway.
P.S. I have a personal record of being able to visit any possible location within an airport, for a reason or the other :)
Andrés Gómez Casanova - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
I have not lived or felt it, but I can endure these situations. Living in Colombia has forged me in this because of our historical problems.
Laura Mugeha - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
While OSM's strength lies in its global, diverse community, it also means that the foundation occasionally faces complex legal and political challenges, particularly regarding controversial topics or disputed territories. By maintaining our commitment to neutral, community-driven mapping while being mindful of complex geopolitical realities, we can continue to provide valuable open data to the world.
It would be essential to co-create guidelines and protocols that adhere to OSM principles for dealing with these situations. Engaging the community and relevant working groups, i.e., the data working group, and documenting decisions that explain OSMF's position and rationale, could help come to a resolution and serve as references for future cases.
Héctor Ochoa Ortiz - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
I believe in OSM’s “on the ground” rule. OSM has to aim to be politically neutral, and I support the current position paper on disputed territories. However, I believe that a clarification should be added on ongoing conflicts, stating after when it is advisable to change the boundaries of the controlling jurisdictions.
Siding with any side of a given conflict is not advisable for a global project, and having a clear set of rules helps OSMF board members point to them when any conflict arises, avoiding any personal judgement.
Español
Creo en la regla "sobre el terreno" de OSM. OSM debe aspirar a ser políticamente neutral, y apoyo el actual documento de posición sobre territorios disputados. Sin embargo, creo que se debería añadir una aclaración sobre los conflictos en curso, indicando después de cuándo es aconsejable cambiar los límites de las jurisdicciones que controlan sobre el terreno.
Tomar partido por cualquier lado de un conflicto dado no es aconsejable para un proyecto global, y tener un conjunto claro de reglas ayuda a los miembros de la junta de la OSMF a señalarlas cuando surge cualquier conflicto, evitando juicios personales.
Arun Ganesh - Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
Prior to OSM, my map contributions to Wikipedia have affected real events around me and I am not a stranger to such issues. This is an inherent risk that I have chosen to live with in the interest of working towards something greater than the self.
OSM Foundation's board election 2024: official questions
Q01 Motivation and Objectives
| Q02 Conflict of Interest Management
| Q03 Transparency and Accountability
| Q04 Strategic Vision and Sustainability
| Q05 Decision-Making and Collaboration
| Q06 Fundraising and Resource Development
| Q07 Handling Legal and Political Challenges
| Q08 State of the Map
| Q09 Your Community Contributions
| Q10 Promoting Community and Attracting Volunteers
| Q11 Technology and Innovation
| Q12 Data Quality and Protection
| Q13 Perspective on Open Source
| Q14 Perspective on Overture Maps
All board candidates' manifestos
2024 OpenStreetMap Foundation's: Board election - Voting information and instructions - Annual General Meeting
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