How do utilities manage Ordnance Survey licensing when sharing data with contractors?

The starting point is the utility’s own data licence. Different commercial and public-sector arrangements have different terms, so the organisation needs to establish what data can be shared, with whom, and for what purpose.

Where contractor sharing is permitted, four principles are particularly important.

• Give contractors only the data they need. A contractor working on a particular project or geographic area doesn’t necessarily need access to the utility’s entire mapping holding.

• Make the permitted use clear. Contractors should understand that licensed mapping is being provided for specified work rather than for unrestricted use elsewhere in their business.

• Keep track of access. Utilities need a reliable record of which contractors have received licensed data, particularly when many suppliers and projects are involved.

• Manage what happens when the work ends. Contractor access shouldn’t simply continue indefinitely. The relevant licensing terms determine how data must be handled when the permitted use finishes.

For eligible public-sector organisations operating under the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), Ordnance Survey provides a Public Sector Contractor Licence where a third party is carrying out works or services under a formal agreement. Commercial utilities need to follow the terms of their own licensing arrangements rather than assuming the same provisions apply.

So the practical difficulty is often more geared to the administration of licensing, rather than the license itself. If every contractor request requires somebody in the GIS team to check permissions, prepare an extract, issue licensing information and maintain a record, the workload can grow quickly.

That is where a managed contractor-data service is worth its weight in gold. Idox Geospatial's Spatial Share is designed to give organisations greater control over distributing licensed spatial data to external users. For utilities managing multiple contractors, the opportunity is to build licensing requirements into a consistent sharing process – giving contractors the mapping they need while retaining oversight of who can access it and why.

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