Podcast: The Texas Map Disclaimer Bill
By Joe Francica and Adena Schutzberg
May 12, 2009
Classified Ads:
If you are still wondering which mobile GPS you should buy for your GIS data collection and mapping projects: Download our white paper to see how our MobileMapper 6 GPS beats the competition with better accuracy and lower price. Visit Magellan ProfessionalA bill before the Texas legislature will require a disclaimer to accompany geospatial data products created or hosted by a government body if the data "was not produced using information from an on-the-ground survey conducted by or under the supervision of a registered professional land surveyor." Our editors think through the implications of such a bill and ask surveyors to add their input.
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Show Notes
ESRI is a platinum sponsor of the Where 2.0 Conference 2009, happening May 19-21 in San Jose, California. Listen to Jack Dangermond, ESRI founder and president, present a session titled Realizing Spatial Intelligence on the GeoWeb on the 20th and visit ESRI’s booth to see a demo of the ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs. For more information visit the ESRI events page and search for Where 2.0.
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| Heck yes, this is happening! Go on eBay and search for Texas Land. Many of the properties that show up have been cut up by a "mapping" company based on state GIS information. They are crafting their product in a way that skirts the surveying requirements. These tracts of land are created without regard to the actual limits of the land on the ground and will be causing problems for the future. |
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| Cadastral maps provide an approximation of property location for taxing purposes, a GIS map (properly contolled) may improve on the location. A land survey provides a legal document that is admissable in court. All cadastral and GIS maps should include a disclamer with respect to accuracy of location. |
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| So let see if I got this right, if I make a map through a manual process, say ink on mylar that is not part of a document then I would not need to add the disclaimer yet if I made the same map using a computer then I would have to add the disclaimer. If that is correct it seems rather silly. Does the Texas State Legislature really want every single map produced by State and Local agencies to be produced under the direction of a licensed surveyor? Are we talking about every single thematic map, every map depicting biological or geological resources, land capabilities and hazards, etc. If so it sounds like Texas is going to need quite a few more surveyors. Or is that the point? |
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| As one of the TSPS authors of the bill's verbiage I have first hand knowledge of this bill. It's merely informing the public (via a disclaimer of your authoring) that geospatial mapping websites and map product that display parcel layers are not based on an actual ground survey and may not be suitable for property boundary determination. As a member of the land surveying community our code of ethics is to protect the public when it comes to property boundaries and disputes. The display of parcel boundaries over aerial imagery has many great uses in GIS, but it’s not the best tool to decide who own's the tree near the property boundary that was just cut down. The Bill is purely a proactive approach to help protect the public and jurisdictional GIS entity in the event of any misinterpretation of ownership from the use of geospatial products that display property boundaries with other information for the legal determination of ownership. |
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| Anyone who tries to brand gis maps as less accurate to surveyor maps has little to no understanding of the legal realm. How many times have judges been asked to adjudicate land boundary disputes. This disclaimer ploy is just another thinly veiled attempt to place some sort of "ethical" (in this case) lock on map generation by surveyors. Same ploy at a national level to lock in bidding on contracts to surveyors. Seems like we could all play fair since we all have more in common than what seperates us professionally. |
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| As then-chairman of the GIS committee within the Texas Society of Professional Surveyors, the body that developed and is pushing this bill, I would like to point out again the CRUCIAL qualifier to the mapping products that would be required to use this disclaimer. Only maps "that appear to represent property boundaries when, in fact, these represented boundaries are not the direct result of an on-the-ground survey conducted by a registered professional land surveyor" will be required to have the disclaimer. This disclaimer is only a minimum requirement. It can be used in conjunction with the map provider's own disclaimer and can be expanded upon. We purposely kept the disclaimer short in hopes that the average layman would actually read it. The disclaimer was created to address the situation that many surveyors in Texas face, in which a client will come in complaining that their tax map does not agree with their survey and they would like us to "correct" our survey. Another issue this disclaimer will address was pointed out by Andy Nold above- those unscrupulous companies that are purposung to sell land or assist in land transactions with illegal documents that appear to represent a property's boundaries (please keep in mind that Texas is a metes and bounds state). Alot of times we'll see agencis get the funds to buy GIS software, but stop short of the proper training to use and develop their data. Before long they are passing out pretty maps to the public without the proper disclosures. This disclaimer is aimed more at the groups that didn't know to put a disclaimer on their data in the first place, rather than the entities that have been using their own disclaimers for year. It should be noted that the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts is supportive of this bill. This bill did not pass in 2009 due to the holdup in the Legislature created by the voter id regulation. Our organization plans to pursue passage of this bill again in 2011. |
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