MAPPS Submits Comments on Proposed FTC Privacy Regulation

Today, MAPPS submitted comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on it's Staff Privacy Report.

Within the comments MAPPS  "urges the FTC to either remove any reference to “precise geolocation data”, more specifically and exactly define the term; and/or include the exemption we have suggested herein."

The suggested exemption:

For the purposes of the regulations and privacy efforts currently under consideration by the FTC, MAPPS submits the following proposed definition of what is NOT “precise geolocation data/information” and thereby exempt from the scope of such regulation:

1.     Any information about the location and shape of, and the relationships among, geographic features, including remotely sensed and map data;

2.     Any graphical or digital data depicting natural or manmade physical features, phenomena, or boundaries of the earth and any information related thereto, including surveys, maps, charts, remote sensing data, and images;

3.     Collection, storage, retrieval, or dissemination of graphical or digital data to depict natural or manmade physical features, phenomena, or boundaries of the earth and any information related to such data, including any such data that comprises a survey, map, chart, geographic information system, remotely sensed image or data, or an aerial photograph by surveyors, photogrammetrists, hydrographers, geodesists, cartographers, or other such mapping and geospatial professionals; and

4.     Data originating from commercial satellite systems licensed to operate by the U.S. government, global positioning systems, geographic information systems, and airborne or terrestrial mapping equipment.