Locus Charter Supporters

Albedo

“Albedo is excited to join the Locus Charter to help support our mission of realizing the unprecedented value of high quality satellite imagery. As a big data generator, Albedo takes a stance as a global steward, facilitating the creation of a greater world with our data, helping to fight climate change and supporting global humanitarian efforts, as well as addressing climate and economic security.” – Topher Haddad, CEO of Albedo

American Geographical Society 

“It’s clear that the international community is interested in collaborating to advance the responsible use of location data. We are very proud to join our sister organizations in this effort.” – John Konarski, CEO of AGS

Association for Geographic Information

“At AGI, our mission is a thriving geospatial community that actively supports a sustainable future. As geographers and geospatial professionals, we have an amazing opportunity to contribute to that future with our tools and expertise, but this contribution must be provided at the highest quality, both responsibly and ethically. The AGI is proud to join the founding Locus Charter supporter group, working to ensure a responsible and ethical future for the geospatial profession.” – Denise McKenzie, AGI Chair

Celantur

“Celantur supports the Locus Charter as our mission aligns with its founding principles. With our technology, we are committed to protecting privacy and preventing the identification of individuals on imagery data.” – Mario Sabatino Riontino, COO of Celantur

DataReady

“The Locus Charter is an important milestone in the maturity of EO data governance. As more EO data are used for ever more purposes, it is crucial that ethics take centre stage. The Locus Charter helps to ground challenges and provides a framework to help work through them.” – Thomas Orrell, Managing Director of DataReady

EIS-Africa

“EIS-Africa has for over two decades championed the use of Geospatial Science and Technology to assist in improving the lives of Africa’s people. We see the adoption and endorsement of the Locus Charter and its ten founding principles as further fulfilling our mandate to use geospatial (location) data for the betterment of society. We pledge to promote the Locus Charter and its principles to our network of geospatial organizations and professionals in Africa.” – Sives Govender, Director of EIS-Africa

Esri UK

“As a GIS leader, we have a duty to lead in relation to location data ethics: to understand the issues, risks and threats and identify ways to help minimise ethical concerns; and to illustrate the benefits of location data, and how to harness them in an ethical way. The Locus Charter provides a framework within which we can do this.”

GIS Management Consulting Services

“For the Locus Charter to have its intended impact, individual geospatial managers and GIS leaders are key to putting it into common practice. The Charter’s 10 Founding Principles and Location Service Lifecycle give GIS managers a framework for ethical and responsible use of spatial data while maintaining society’s trust in geographic information science and technology.” – Greg Babinski, Founder of GIS Management Consulting Services 

INEGI

“Particularly at INEGI, the inclusion of new technologies for obtaining geospatial information, such as the use of the Mexican Geospatial Data Cube (MGDC); and the increase and restructuring of new methodologies for data analysis are augmented by careful consideration of ethical issues in data collection, management, and use.” – Paloma Merodio Gómez, Vice President of INEGI

Open Geospatial Consortium

“I am proud that the Open Geospatial Consortium is one of the initial supporting organizations of the Locus Charter with strong support at all levels of the organization – our members, our Planning Committee, and our Board of Directors. It’s a timely initiative as the world is increasingly reliant on location data and technologies. Hence, it’s timely for us at OGC to involve ourselves to ensure that, as our community delivers tomorrow’s technologies and standards, we are cognizant of the ethical implications of our innovations.” – Dr. Nadine Alameh, CEO of OGC

Ordnance Survey

“As a world-leader in the development and application of trusted location data, it is important for OS to remain at the forefront of the growing international discussion around location data ethics and play our part. Our participation in the Locus Charter community allows us to do this. Joining the Locus Charter community reinforces our commitment to the work OS and Geovation have proudly pioneered during the past two years through the Benchmark Initiative on location data ethics. As an authoritative source of location data, it is important that OS commits to using location data responsibly and ethically, and encourages others to do the same.” – David Henderson, Chief Geospatial Officer of OS 

Open Source Geospatial Foundation

“The OSGeo community has always been working towards building an open and better geospatial world. Given the importance of geospatial data in the digital era, the OSGeo foundation identifies the need to support ethical and responsible practice when using location data. We are excited to join the Locus Charter to improve standards of practice, and help protect individuals and the public interest.” – Dr. Angelos Tzotsos, President of OSGeo

PLACE

“We are pleased to see others join the call for a greater industry focus on the ethical use of location data. The Locus Charter is an important step along the way and PLACE is proud to have played a catalytic role on its development and implementation. Moving forward, we are aligning its Founding Principles with our membership practices.” – Peter Rabley, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of PLACE

Radiant Earth Foundation

“Joining the Locus Charter is a perfect fit. The technologies we use at Radiant Earth help us understand the context of living in a changing climate and offer deeper insights on how society can respond to these changes. But as data curators, we must be ever vigilant to prevent any misuse of geospatial data and anonymization failures. We are excited to combine our efforts with a group of like minded organizations, which will help improve the standard of practice around location data.” – Dr. Hamed Alemohammad, Executive Director and Chief Data Scientist at Radiant Earth Foundation

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors

“RICS is committed to ethical professional practice as enshrined within our Royal Charter, ethical principles and rules of conduct. Locus is an important addition to an ever evolving issue.” – James Kavanagh, Director of RICS 

Royal Geographical Society

“The Society is delighted to have become a member of the Locus Charter, offering a set of common international principles that can guide responsible practice when using location data – an issue currently at the heart of debate around digital privacy. The responsible use of data is crucial, be it deployed in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, fighting climate change, protecting the environment or improving public health. The Charter’s remit covers all sectors in which public trust and confidence must be maintained and highlights the impact of location data in policy and practice. We are looking forward to working with the American Geographical Society and others to support geographers and location data users in the practical development of the Charter principles.” – Nigel Clifford, President of the Royal Geographical Society

Urban and Regional Information Systems Association

“The founding principles of the Locus Charter align so well with URISA’s mission and the GIS Code of Ethics. We are excited to engage with the expanding global network of geospatial professionals advocating the ethical use of geospatial data.” – Wendy Nelson, Executive Director of URISA

WeRobotics

“We are glad to join the Locus Charter to further the responsible use of location data and to complement our Drone Code of Conduct for Social Good.” – Sonja Betschart, Co-Founder and CEO of WeRobotics

World Geospatial Industry Council

“As we see the proliferation of geospatial and location-based technologies in almost every aspect of our daily lives, it is essential to ensure that the benefits of these technologies not only reach everyone, but at the same time, result in no unintended negative consequences, and/or infringe on the personal privacy rights of citizens. These founding principles of the Locus Charter align with the guiding principles of WGIC. On behalf of WGIC, and in collaboration with the Charter, I look forward to advancing these principles globally throughout the geospatial community and beyond.” – Barbara Ryan, Executive Director of WGIC

Youth Association for Development Pakistan

“As Youth Association for Development (YAD) Pakistan is working on the integration of mobile technologies, creative production, digital activism, web-based tools, social media, media technologies and artificial intelligence-based systems in our projects and programs, we are responsible and careful to protect the privacy, secrecy, cyber and digital rights of our beneficiaries. To protect the data, ethics must take the central role. The Locus Charter provides a framework within which we can do this and apply the Locus Charter framework.” – Atta ul Haq Khaderzai, Founder and CEO of YAD