Location-based services are pivotal to our lives, particularly in urban centres. After the pandemic, it is difficult to imagine how we could have survived without them – from e-commerce to mobility, the expanse of offerings is vast. It also unlocks tremendous economic value in traditional sectors such as agriculture, mining, construction, etc.
These services are powered by geospatial data – location information, boundaries (man-made or natural), points of interest, weather patterns, statistical information, etc. Technologies that capture such data have made immense progress over the years – photogrammetry using manned/unmanned aerial vehicles, terrestrial vehicle-mounted Mobile Mapping System, LIDAR, RADAR Interferometry, satellite-based remote sensing, mobile phone sensors, and other techniques. Geographic data and information are defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth. In short, the geospatial data usage includes location maps (Google Maps & more), weather maps, real estate listings, and contact lists.
Last year in February, the Department of Science & Technology, GoI, announced sweeping changes to amend the guidelines for acquiring and producing geospatial data and geospatial data services, including maps.
What is readily available globally should not prove to be constrictive to mapmakers in India, and this thinking is also aligned with the government’s overarching vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. What it means is that our innovators are no longer restricted because of necessary approvals before they collect, generate & disseminate digital geospatial data and maps within the Indian territory. It’s like liberating the mapping industry and democratizing the use of existing datasets to kickstart major innovations in this space and greatly diminish our erstwhile reliance on foreign sources.
Essentially, it opens up a whole range of opportunities from smart cities’ applications to digital India to autonomous drones to logistics to urban mobility – the use cases are innumerable. However, we must remain cognizant of data privacy implications. For instance, the latitudinal & longitudinal coordinates of a restaurant fall under the category of positional data, but what’s on the display board, timings, occupants fall under attribute data. There’s a negative list also – the extent of attribute data that can be collected. We also await the passage of the two Bills in the Parliament – Personal & Non-personal Data Privacy Bills – and once they are in place, the legal boundaries will be more precise. Department of Science and Technology (DST) will regulate sensitive attributes to be collected.
MapmyIndia.com is an indigenous company in this segment and has a range of services/products on offer. The most interesting aspect is that even as far back as 1995, the founders had a vision that 80 per cent of all data would have a locational component one day. Today they touch hundreds of millions of lives across sectors – global tech firms, leading automotive manufacturers, BFSI, FMCG, Logistics, and many others.
The company’s outreach impresses with 6.29 million km of road mapped, 17.79 million places, and 14.51 million addresses have been captured.