gis ethics case study

The Practical Application of the GIS Code of Ethics – A Case Study

by Greg Babinski March 12, 2020 August 6, 2020

For those who live in the Seattle area or for those who visit Seattle, SeaTac is a curious name but also the most frequent gateway to the Pacific Northwest. A few years ago it was also the location of an interesting case in the practical application of the GIS Code of Ethics.

The ethical use of geographic data and geospatial technology is a primary concern of GIS professionals. I have been an active member of URISA (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association) and its local chapters for more than 30 years. About the time I moved to Seattle, URISA launched a task force to determine if the GIS profession needed a code of ethics, and if so to propose such a code. In April 2003, the URISA Board unanimously approved the GIS Code of Ethics . It includes guidance ethic obligations in four key areas: • Obligations to society • Obligations to employers and funders • Obligations to colleagues and the profession • Obligations to individuals in society

URISA members are required to adhere to the GIS Code of Ethics, as are those who are certified as GIS Professionals (GISPs) by the GIS Certification Institute . However, the practical application of the GIS Code of Ethics is somewhat abstract for many GIS professionals. Most GIS professionals will rarely need to make an active decision based on a situation covered by the Code. When a GIS professional is confronted with a request to do something that might violate the GIS Code of Ethics, how do we respond? Are we prepared to respond?

An article on the Professional and Practical Ethics of GIS&T in the GIS&T Body of Knowledge (DiBiase 2017) suggests that a GIS practitioner might respond ‘…based on a combination of “ordinary morality,” institutional ethics policies, and professional ethics codes.’ A moral reasoning process is suggested, to serve as a model for GIS professionals to apply when confronted with an ethical dilemma. Suggested steps include: 1) state the problem, 2) check facts, 3) identify relevant factors, 4) develop a list of options, 5) test the options, and 6) make a choice based on 1-5. A seventh step is to reassess the response after the situation has resolved itself. I believe that GIS professionals should share real-life situations related to GIS Code of Ethics dilemmas.

In 2007 the National Science Foundation funded the development of educational material related to GIS ethics in support of graduate seminars at Penn State, Oregon State, and the University of Minnesota. Ethics Education for Geospatial Professionals at the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute at Penn State provides many useful resources. These include syllabi for teaching GIS ethics, links to the GISCI Code of Ethics and Rules of Conduct, as well as the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Code of Ethics. This resource also includes a list of 17 hypothetical case studies to help students and GIS professionals explore ethical dilemmas and develop moral reasoning skills.

Here is a real case study for GIS professionals to consider. The name SeaTac is derived from the largest landowner and biggest employer in the city, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport . The origins of the airport go back to World War II, when the US military requisitioned Boeing Field in Seattle. The Port of Seattle received $1million from the US military and $100,000 from the City of Tacoma to build a new civilian airport in an unincorporated rural area midway between the two largest Puget Sound cities. Named for both Seattle and Tacoma, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport opened in 1947. Today it is the eighth busiest airport in the US, and the 28th busiest in the world.

Geographic factors influenced the location for the airport, and once it went into operation, geographic factors stimulated urban development in the immediate area. In 1989 local residents voted to incorporate and in 1990 the City of SeaTac was established. I moved to Washington State in 1998 to begin my work with the King County GIS Center in Seattle. In 2016, SeaTac was a city of more than 25,000 residents with a little GIS department, headed by a GIS Coordinator who is a GISP (Certified GIS Professional). Today SeaTac’s population is almost 29,000 with one third of residents White and large Black, Hispanic, and Asian populations.

In 2015 SeaTac residents elected four new members to its City Council who campaigned as a group with a pledge to bring change to City Hall. Almost immediately they fired the current City Manager and hired a new interim City Manager who had been recommended by the new Mayor. The new interim City Manager’s professional background was in the U.S. Army. He had no experience in city government.

Within a month of his hiring, the City Manager met with the GIS Coordinator and asked if the City had the data and the capability to map the location where city residents of certain designated religions lived. In particular, he wanted to know to the neighborhood and household level where Sunni and Shiite Muslims in SeaTac lived.

He described his desire to have ‘tactical maps’ of city neighborhoods, so that he could ‘make the peace’ if needed. The City Manager described his goal for this GIS mapping request to others in the City as related to the Somali and Eritrean communities within SeaTac and his fears of ‘radicalized’ Muslims. Later the request was expanded to include mapping individual Christians (Protestant and Catholic) as well as individuals by gender and age group. One of the goals for the project was also to identify the location of ‘Americans who had not adopted American ways.’

How did the SeaTac GIS Coordinator respond to this request? First, because she felt uncomfortable and confused, she put her meeting notes in writing and emailed them to the City Manager, asking him to confirm his request. She told the City Manager that it might be illegal to collect and publish a map for the City with such personal and private data. Then she spoke to the City Attorney and her manager about the request. While she consulted with other city staff, she did research into data sources. She determined that US Census data could not provide the type of data desired by the City Manager, but she identified other possible non-Census data sources for information about religious congregations.

What was the GIS Coordinator’s dilemma? She might lose her job if she did not comply with this request! But she faced other dilemmas. The GIS Code of Ethics refers to obligations to society, to employers and funders, and to individuals in society.

The GIS Coordinator’s obligations to society include being objective, practicing integrity (don’t be unduly swayed by the demands of others), and strive to do what is right, not just what is legal. She had obligations to her employer, the City of SeaTac. This included identifying risks and potential means to reduce them, suggesting alternatives, striving to resolve differences, and being open about any limitations of data. Her obligations to individuals in society focused on understanding the potential impact of her work on individuals. They include respecting privacy, especially about sensitive information, and to treat all individuals equally, without regard to race, gender or other personal characteristics, including religion.

How was the situation resolved for the GIS Coordinator? Because the City Manager had serious conflicts with other key city staff, from department directors to individual staff, he resigned his position in April, just 11 weeks after he was hired. Eventually the story of the City Manager’s request to create a tactical map showing the location of Muslims in SeaTac made front page news in the Seattle Times, the same day that the 2016 Washington GIS Conference opened in nearby Tacoma.

Rarely does news about GIS make the front page of any newspaper. I admire the GIS Coordinator for recognizing the issues related to the City Manager’s request and how she worked within the system to resolve the situation.

However, had the SeaTac City Manager stayed in his position, his request for mapping the location of individuals based on their religious affiliation would have remained. Every GIS professional needs to think about how they would react in a similar situation.

I encourage you to share your thoughts about GIS ethics in general and the SeaTac GIS Coordinator’s ethical dilemma in the comments section below.

Greg Babinski is Marketing and Business Development Manager for the King County GIS Center in Seattle, where he has worked since 1998. Previously he worked for nine years as GIS Mapping Supervisor for the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland. He holds an MA in geography from Wayne State University. Greg is a GISP – Certified GIS Professional. Babinski is Past-President of URISA and founder and Past-Chair of URISA’s GIS Management Institute. In 2005 he founded The Summit – the Washington State GIS Newsletter. Greg originated the URISA GIS Capability Maturity Model and participated in the development of the Geospatial Management Competency Model. Most recently Greg has focused on the application of GIS for issues related to equity and social justice. He is co-author of the URISA-Certified Introduction to GIS for Equity and Social Justice Workshop. He is an American Geographical Society 2019-2020 Ethical GEO Fellow. In addition to GIS consulting, he is a GIS researcher, author, and instructor. He has spoken about GIS management across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Greg has also taught GIS for Public Policy as an instructor with the University of Washington Evans Graduate School of Public Administration. In his spare time, Greg likes hiking steep, narrow and dangerous trails that lead high above the clouds to awesome views.

Vice Provost & Professor, New York University  Founder, Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies

Charlton is the Vice Provost and Professor at New York University, and author of “Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, From the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter.” He founded the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies. His recent work focuses on the intersections of race, digital media, and racial justice activism .

Associate Editor and Director of Projects, Migrant-Rights.org

Vani Saraswathi is the Associate Editor and Director of Projects, Migrant-Rights.org, and the author of Stories of Origin: The Invisible Lives of Migrants in the Gulf. Vani moved to Qatar in 1999, working with several local and regional publications, and launching some of Qatar’s leading periodicals during her 17-year stint there. During her stay in Qatar she, along with likeminded people, mobilized a grassroots community to help migrants in distress. She also reported regularly on human rights issues in Qatar for publications in India.

Since 2014, in her role with Migrant-Rights.org, she reports from the Gulf states and countries of origin. She also organizes advocacy projects and human rights training targeting individual employers, embassies, recruitment agents, and businesses in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, working with nationals and longterm residents in these countries. A special emphasis is on female migrants, including domestic workers. Much of her advocacy effort is geared towards mainstreaming issues facing female migrant workers. She is a member of the Migration Advisory Group (previous Policy Advisory Committee) of ILO ROAS. She has worked with ILO Addis Ababa on training modules for labor attaches being deployed to the Gulf states. She contributes as an expert commentator on issues related to human rights in the GCC for various international publications and at international forums, including various UN forums.

Migrant-Rights.org is a one of its kind bi-lingual content based advocacy platform that focusses on the GCC states and the corridors of migration, Asia & Africa. It was started 16 years ago by activist Esra’a El Shafei. Vani divides her time between Qatar, other GCC states, and India.

Professor of Practice, Harvard University

Ambassador Samantha Power served as the US Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013-2017, and as human rights advisor to President Barack Obama on the National Security Council from 2009-2013.  Power won the Pulitzer Prize for her book “ A Problem from Hell”: America in the Age of Genocide . Her newest book is the  New York Times  bestseller  T he Education of an Idealist: A Memoir,  about her life in Ireland, her immigrant experience in the US, and her career as a war correspondent, human rights advocate, and diplomat. Currently she is on the faculty at Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School.

Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Sue has previously served as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She has also served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Information Operations Center and senior cyber advisor to the Director of the CIA.

Former Director, Defense Intelligence Agency

Vince served as a lieutenant general in the United States Marine Corps who most recently served as Deputy Commander at United States Cyber Command. He previously served as the 20 th Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Former Deputy Director, National Security Agency

Chris has served over 41 years of federal service in the Department of Defense including 28 years at the National Security Agency and over seven years as its Deputy Director. He began his career at NSA as a computer scientist within the National Computer Security Center followed by tours in information assurance, policy, time-sensitive operations, and signals intelligence organizations.

President, The Cardillo Group

Robert became the sixth Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2014. Prior to leading the NGA, Cardillo served as the first Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Intelligence Integration.

Senior Campaign Organizer, Mijente

Jacinta is the Senior Campaign Organizer at Mijente. She previously worked at PODER (Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research) in Mexico. She was the lead organizer for the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice Congress of Day Laborers.

Executive Director, Just Futures Law

Paromita is a leader in the immigrants’ rights movement. She has created or helped produce dozens of resources and reports for immigrant communities impacted by policing and immigration enforcement, including detainer policies and technology surveillance.

Co-Founder, United States Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network Assistant Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

Desi’s interests are social demography, race and ethnicity, and social stratification. She was raised on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana where she previously ran for her Tribal Council. She is an appointed adviser to the Director of the United States Census Bureau as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations.

Director of Policy & Partnerships, Algorithmic Justice League 

Aaina is an AI & Human Rights Consultant, formerly one of the first members of the Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning team at the World Economic Forum. She is a human rights lawyer by training, having received a Masters of Law focused on Tech Policy & Human Rights at NYU.

Knowledge Director, The GovLab and Responsible Data for Children 

Young is the Knowledge Director at The GovLab, where he leads research efforts focusing on the impact of technology on public institutions. He has authored or co-authored a number of extended works on new approaches for improving governance with technology. He is also the Network Coordinator of the GovLab-chaired MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance.

Chair, Council for Global Equality

Mark helped launch the Council for Global Equality to encourage a clearer and stronger American voice on international LGBT and intersex human rights concerns. In 2016, he provided the first-ever testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the state of LGBT rights around the world. Today, Mr. Bromley and his colleagues provide regular briefings on trends impacting LGBT individuals globally. He also monitors the U.N. human rights system and has conducted research on sexual violence as a war crime.

Incoming Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Steve has served as a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of State, where he had responsibility for Africa policy, international labor affairs, and international religious freedom. Previously he was the director of the office of policy at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and also served as counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he oversaw U.S. foreign assistance programs, and international organizations.

Founder and Executive Director, Equidem Research & Consulting

Mustafa Qadri is the Founder and Executive Director of Equidem Research and Consulting.  He is a human rights research and advocacy expert with over 15 years of experience in government and public international law, journalism and the non-governmental sector. He is the author of several landmark human rights reports into the construction industry, civil and political rights issues, and media freedom, and has carried out human rights investigations in several countries.    

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Gs-11 - professional and practical ethics of gis&t.

Geospatial technologies are often and rightly described as “powerful.” With power comes the ability to cause harm – intentionally or unintentionally - as well as to do good. In the context of GIS&T, Practical Ethics is the set of knowledge, skills and abilities needed to make reasoned decisions in light of the risks posed by geospatial technologies and methods in a wide variety of use cases. Ethics have been considered from different viewpoints in the GIS&T field. A practitioner's perspective may be based on a combination of "ordinary morality," institutional ethics policies, and professional ethics codes. By contrast, an academic scholar's perspective may be grounded in social or critical theory. What these perspectives have in common is reliance on reason to respond with integrity to ethical challenges. This entry focuses on the special obligations of GIS professionals, and on a method that educators can use to help students develop moral reasoning skills that GIS professionals need. The important related issues of Critical GIS and Spatial Law and Policy are to be considered elsewhere.  

• Definitions
• Professional and practical ethics
• Emergence of a practical ethics of GIS
• Critical perspectives on GIS ethics
• Moral reasoning
• The case method
• Implications for teaching and learning

1. Definitions

Case method : A pedagogical technique for strengthening the moral reasoning skills of students by analyzing ethical scenarios. 

Dialectic : A method of examining and discussing opposing ideas to find the truth.

Moral reasoning : The process of determining the difference between right and wrong in a rational way.

Practical ethics : The discipline that bridges the gap between moral philosophy and the ethical challenges that confront people and institutions in day-to-day life.

Professional ethics : An aspect of practical ethics that concerns the special moral obligations that bear upon persons in certain occupations.

2. Professional and practical ethics

Dennis Thompson, founding director of the Ethics Center at Harvard University, observes that “philosophical principles cannot be applied in any straightforward way to particular problems and policies” (2007). Practical ethics, he points out, is the discipline that bridges the gap between moral philosophy and the ethical challenges that confront people and institutions in day-to-day life. Professional ethics is an aspect of practical ethics that concerns the special moral obligations that bear upon persons in certain occupations. In fact, a practitioner's commitment to honor these occupation-specific obligations, above and beyond ordinary morality, is a defining characteristic of professionalism (Davis 2014). As the practice of GIS has coalesced as a profession, and as geospatial technologies have matured, so too have the special moral obligations of GIS professionals crystalized. 

3. Emergence of a pratical ethics of GIS

Among the earliest considerations of professional ethics in cartography and GIS was an “ethics roundtable” published in 1990 (McHaffie, Andrews, Dobson, & others 1990). Contributors identified implications of inaccurate maps and data, intellectual property issues, and conflicts of interest as important ethical issues. Soon thereafter, Monmonier (1991, 1996) pointed out ways in which maps can be used to mislead decision-makers and the public, and proposed design guidelines to foster ethical practice by cartographers.

By 1993, Will Craig had laid the groundwork for a GIS Code of Ethics (Craig, 1993). After a study of existing codes in comparable organizations, and in consultation with a community of scholars and practitioners, Craig adopted a deontological approach that emphasizes treating people with respect, not as means to an end. In 2004, the newly-founded GIS Certification Institute included affirmation of the GIS Code of Ethics (written primarily by Craig) and Rules of Conduct (developed later by GISCI) among the requirements for certification as a GIS Professional (GISP). As of this writing, over 8,000 GISPs have earned certification.

Both the Code and Rules specify "Obligations to Society," "Obligations to Employers and Funders," "Obligations to Colleagues and the Profession," and "Obligations to Individuals in Society” as categories of duties to which GIS professionals are bound. Virtues enshrined in the Code and Rules include honesty ("admit when a mistake has been made"), forthrightness ("provide full, clear, and accurate information"), integrity ("avoid [or disclose] all conflicts of interest") , good citizenship ("donate services to the community"), objectivity ("not distort or alter the facts"), fairness ("treat all individuals equally"), respect and lawfulness ("honor intellectual property rights"), and responsibility ("hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public" and "keep current in the field").

None of the provisions of the Code or Rules are solely applicable to GIS work. A few pertain specifically to information technology, such as "all data shall have appropriate metadata," and "allow individuals to withhold consent from being added to a database." Ethical problems uniquely posed by geospatial technologies, such as location tracking and geographic profiling, are implied but not explicitly mentioned. Dictums such as "Be aware of consequences, good and bad," "Strive to do what is right, not just what is legal," and "Define alternative strategies to reach employer/funder goals..." reflect an appreciation of the fact that ethical behavior requires ethical awareness and moral reasoning skills, not just following rigid rules about right and wrong actions. The very first Rule provides an uncomfortable example of the kind of moral ambiguity that many professionals experience at some points in their careers: "Some applications of GIS ... may harm individuals ... while advancing government policies that some citizens regards as morally objectionable. GIS professionals’ participation in such applications is a matter of individual conscience." (GISCI, 2004)

No assessment of the Code's and Rules' conformance with a "moral consensus of GIS practice," as recommended by Onsrud (1995), has been attempted. Absent that, the Code itself stands as a defacto consensus of the special obligations of GIS professionals. Though a true consensus may never be achieved, critical engagement with the Code and Rules is warranted (O'Sullivan 2008).

4. Critical perspectives on GIS ethics

In 1995, Jeremy Crampton critiqued the practical ethical concerns raised in the earlier “ethics roundtable” and related discussions. Long before the GIS Code and Rules were developed, he predicted that “’nailing down’ an ethical code ... is not the solution” (1995, p. 88). Following Michael Curry, Crampton expected that a code of ethics “may create the illusion of order, but is more likely merely to promote rule-following behaviour...” (Curry 1991, 144).  Crampton argued for “an ethical analysis that goes beyond ‘internalist’ judgments of good behavior … to a contextualized ‘externalist’ one.” His critique, and others like it, later coalesced as the “intellectual stance” known as Critical GIS (O'Sullivan 2008, 7). 

Critical or “externalist” perspectives on GIS appeared in the late 1980s and early 90s. As geospatial technologies matured and their applications became widespread, scholars as well as practitioners began to express concerns about the ethical implications of their use. Brian Harley (1988) was in the vanguard of scholars who questioned the assumption that maps are impartial and value-neutral depictions. By 1991, he challenged map makers to consider whether there could be “an ethically informed cartography, and if so, what should be its agenda?” (Harley 1991, p. 13).

At about the same time, Pickles (1991) highlighted the use of GIS as a surveillance technology, while Smith (1992) alleged that the makers and users of geospatial technologies were complicit in the killings associated with what he considered to be a morally questionable Gulf War. By 1995, a substantial literature focused on ethical and epistemological critiques of GIS and related technologies had appeared (e.g., Pickles 1995), and a widening gulf of misunderstanding and mistrust had separated critical scholars from proponents and practitioners of GIS and related technologies (Schuurman 2000). Critique verged on alarmism when Dobson and Fisher (2003) warned of “a new form of slavery characterized by location control” (p. 47), arguing that “...the countless benefits of [location-based services, including human tracking] are countered by social hazards unparalleled in human history” (p. 47).

Skeptical about the sufficiency of an ethics code to help GIS practitioners to mitigate such hazards, Crampton argued instead for “approaching ethical issues from an internalist and externalist dialectic” that “modifies both internal and external perspectives.” “Dialectic” is a method of examining and discussing opposing ideas in order to find the truth. In practical ethics, one such method is known as moral reasoning. 

5. Moral reasoning

Moral reasoning is the process of determining the difference between right and wrong in a rational way. Moral reasoning is needed to resolve ethical problems that do not present alternatives that are obviously right or wrong.

For example, imagine yourself an independent GIS services contractor who's been offered a lucrative contract by a municipal government to map Muslim neighborhoods in a major city. City Police intend the project to identify enclaves of Muslims who are susceptible to radicalization, and to target outreach activities designed to mitigate the risk of domestic terrorist attacks. On the other hand, community leaders and others oppose the plan as geographic profiling. Should you accept the contract, decline it, or respond in some other way? Unless you're willing to “go with your gut,” the right decision may not be obvious to you. Several provisions of the GIS Code of Ethics and GISCI Rules of Conduct pertain, but no one provides decisive guidance. In such a non-trivial ethical case, moral reasoning is more likely than intuition to lead to a good decision.  

Using geospatial technologies, as in the “mapping Muslim neighbors” scenario described above (National Public Radio 2007), sometimes gives rise to ethical concerns. However, the technologies themselves also cause concern as they evolve and proliferate. For example, camera-equipped drones and associated image processing software provide efficient means to monitor and map relatively small areas. But they also fuel worries about privacy and safety, as well as intended and unintended consequences of police or military surveillance. Elsewhere, however, they enable deliveries of life-saving medicines and supplies to remote settlements, and monitoring of species threatened by poachers. Autonomous drones pose potentials for good and ill that outstrip governments’ ability to regulate their use (Pomfret 2017).  

Self-driving cars and trucks are chockablock with geospatial technologies, including mobile lidar, radar, video, GPS, inertial measurement, high-resolution "HD" digital maps, and network analysis capabilities like routing. While potential benefits of fewer accidents and injuries, and savings of time and money, assure the continuing development and proliferation of driverless and autonomous trucks and cars. Some observers worry about the ethical issues that autonomous vehicles raise. Consider the scenario posed by philosopher Eric Scheitzgebel:

"You and your daughter are riding in a driverless car along the Pacific Coast Highway. The autonomous vehicle rounds a corner and detects a crosswalk full of children. It brakes, but your lane is unexpectedly full of sand from a recent rock slide. It can't get traction. Your car does some calculations: If it continues braking, there's a 90% chance that it will kill at least three children, Should it save them by steering you and your daughter off the cliff?" (Schwitzgebel 2015) 

The Internet of Things – that burgeoning billions of location-aware sensors that occupy our products and devices, and that monitor our environments like unsleeping sentries – pose perhaps the greatest ethical challenges. The machine learning techniques that are needed to make sense of the really big data that the IoT generates each moment may lead to the decoupling of intelligence from consciousness (Harari 2016). Who then will be prepared to code ethical algorithms for an autonomous spatial decision (support) system?

Helping students develop stronger moral reasoning skills is an overarching goal of ethics education (Dark and Winstead 2005). Developing moral reasoning skills requires “a framework for evaluating ethical dilemmas and making decisions. In accepting the premise that technology is value-laden, we stress the need to teach a methodology of explicit ethical analysis in all decision-making related to technology” (Martin & Holz 2010). One such framework is Davis’ (1999) “seven-step guide to ethical decision making” (outlined below) or similar models suggested by Keefer and Ashley (2001) and others. The guide, applied to non-trivial ethics case studies, helps educators coach students to suspend judgment until they've identified, considered, and rigorously tested a range of possible options. 

Step 1. State problem . For example, “there's something about this decision that makes me uncomfortable” or “do I have a conflict of interest?”

Step 2. Check facts. Many problems disappear upon closer examination of situation, while others change radically.

Step 3: Identify relevant factors. For example, persons involved, laws, professional code, other practical constraints.

Step 4: Develop list of options. Be imaginative, try to avoid “dilemma”; not “yes” or “no” but whom to go to, what to say.

Step 5: Test options. Use such tests as the following: Harm test: does this option do less harm than alternatives? Publicity test: would I want my choice of this option published in the newspaper? Defensibility test: could I defend choice of option before Congressional committee or committee of peers? Reversibility test: would I still think choice of this option good if I were adversely affected by it? Colleague test: what do my colleagues say when I describe my problem and suggest this option as my solution? Professional test: what might my profession's governing body or ethics committee say about this option? Organization test: what does the company's ethics officer or legal counsel say about this?

Step 6: Make a choice based on steps 1-5.

Step 7: Review steps 1-6. What could you do to make it less likely that you would have to make such a decision again? Are there any precautions can you take as individual (announce your policy on question, change job, etc.)? Is there any way to have more support next time? Is there any way to change the organization (for example, suggest policy change at next departmental meeting)?

Michael Davis’ (1999) Seven-step guide to ethical decision-making. This is one of several frameworks recommended by ethicists to help students strengthen moral reasoning skills by methodically analyzing ethics case studies. 

6. The case method

Onsrud (1995) recommended a study of the moral reasoning of GIS professionals in response to a set of “ethical conflict scenarios” to determine whether a moral consensus about GIS practice exists. The case method is a common pedagogical technique for strengthening the moral reasoning skills of students in business, medicine, law, engineering, and computer and information science (Davis 1999, Keefer and Ashley 2001, Quinn 2006c). In the context of professional ethics, case studies are realistic workplace scenarios that challenge students to analyze ethical problems rationally and to identify and evaluate options.

In 2007, the National Science Foundation funded a project to create a set of ethics case studies for use in GIS education. Fifteen cases are available at https://gisethics.org , along with instructor resources on request. (The scenario described in the preceding section is a synopsis of one of the cases.) Other case studies include:

• Mobile phone tracking: Researchers track mobile phone users' movements to derive predictive models of human mobility.
• Public access to government map data: A governmental agency's need to recoup user fees conflicts with a public records law.
• E-911 Contract case: A municipal GIS manager troubled by what appears to be a conflict of interest considers filing a formal ethics complaint.
• Tidal wetland mapping case: A scope of work statement and established mapping procedures prevent a GIS analyst from adding wetlands to a conservation database.
• Collateral damage case: A geospatial intelligence analyst predicts the civilian casualties likely to be caused by a pre-emptive missile attack.

At Penn State University, the cases, along with Davis’ seven-step guide, have been used by nearly 300 graduate students since 2009 in a required “Responsible Scholarship and Professional Practice” workshop. Pre- and post-workshop questionnaires suggest that the case method has increased students’ awareness of ethical problems associated with GIS, enabled them to demonstrate moral reasoning abilities, and strengthened their belief that ethics education should be a required part of the preparation of geospatial professionals. 

7. Implications for teaching and learning

To the extent that GIS&T education is meant to prepare students to become, or advance as, GIS professionals, it ought to help students develop ethical awareness and moral reasoning abilities. Indeed, preparing students for successful and meaningful futures is arguably one of the special moral obligations that bear upon GIS education professionals. But even GIS courses, certificate and degree programs that do not emphasize pre-service or in-service professional development should prepare students to challenge the status quo and question assumptions about right and wrong actions, whatever their walk of life. The case method is a tried and true method for accomplishing that.

However, a recent survey of 312 GIS course syllabi at U.S. colleges and universities provides no evidence that professional ethics, practical ethics, or critical perspectives are included (Wikle and Fagin 2014). Although "exclusion of a topic may not imply that a topic was [not] covered," (Ibid., 583), it is certain that no disciplinary mandate for ethics training yet exists for GIS&T, as it does for Information Systems, Computer Science, and Engineering disciplines. Davis (2006, 717) observes that engineering faculty members resisted adding ethics to their crowded curricula because "there wasn't room." He suggests "micro-insertions" – concise considerations of ethical problems that can be slipped into existing lessons – as an effective alternative to entire ethics lessons or classes. The ethics case studies produced by the GIS Professional Ethics project are designed to facilitate the micro-insertion of professional ethics into GIS&T education.  

Portions of this entry were adapted from DiBiase, David, Francis Harvey, Christopher Goranson and Dawn Wright (2012). The GIS Professional Ethics Project: Practical Ethics for GIS Professionals .  In Unwin, David, Ken Foote, Nick Tate and David DiBiase, Eds. Teaching Geographic Information Science and Technology in Higher Education. London: Wiley and Sons. 

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Crampton, Jeremy (1995). The Ethics of GIS. Carotography and Geographic Information Science  22:1 , 84-89. 

Curry, Michael R. (1991). On the possibility of ethics in geography: Writing, citing, and the construction of intellectual property. Progress in Human Geography 18:25-147. 

Dark, Melissa J., and Winstead, Jeanne. (2005). Using educational theory and moral psychology to inform the teaching of ethics in computing. Information Security Curriculum Development Conference ’05, September 23-24, Kennesaw, GA. Association of Computing Machinery.

Davis, Michael (1999).  Ethics and the University . London: Routledge.

Davis, Michael (2006). Integrating ethics in technical courses: Micro-insertion. Science and Engineering Ethics 12:717-730. DOI:  10.1007/s11948-006-0066-z .

Davis, Michael (2014). What to consider when preparing a model core curriculum for GIS ethics: objectives, methods, and a sketch of content. Journal of Geography I Higher Education 38:4, 471–480. DOI: 10.1080/03098265.2014.956298 .

Dobson, Jerome E. & Fisher, Peter. F. (2003). Geoslavery. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring, 47-52.

Harari, Yuval Noah (2016). Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. HarperCollins.

GIS Certification Institute (2014) Rules of Conduct https://www.gisci.org/Ethics/RulesofConduct.aspx

Harley, J. B. (1988). Maps, Knowledge, and Power. In D. Cosgrove and S. Daniels, Eds., The Iconography of Landscape, pp. 277-312. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harley, J. B. (1991). Can there be a cartographic ethics? Cartographic Perspectives, 10, 9-16. DOI:  10.14714/CP10.1053 .

• Demonstrate the ability to reason about an ethical challenge in the professional practice of GIS by methodically analyzing an ethics case study.
• Compare and contrast professional and practical (“internalist”) perspectives and critical (“externalist”) perspectives on the ethics of GIS&T.
• Demonstrate ethical creativity by posing multiple possible solutions to an ethical challenge. Resist the temptation to reduce such challenges to simplistic dilemmas.
• Identify provisions of the GIS Code of Ethics that are relevant to particular ethical challenges, especially provisions that appear to be contrary.

1. What should GIS professionals know about ethics?

2. What should GIS educators teach about ethics?

3. What's the best way to teach GIS ethics?

4. Outline a multi-step process for reasoning about ethical challenges.

5. Describe a scenario that poses a non-trivial ethical change related to geospatial technogies.  

• Ethics for Certified Geospatial Professionals
• Ethics and geospatial information
• critical GIS
• spatial law and policy

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GEO 567 Responsible GIS Practice: Ethics for Future Geospatial Professionals

Last update: May 11, 2023 Course developed and taught by Dr. Dawn Wright © 2008-2011

GIS Ethics: Understanding implications of action

Everything we do has an impact on others. Some of those impacts are negative and some are positive. Ethics is the philosophical framework that is used to maximize the good we do and minimize the harm. This brief paper talks about ethics as they relate to the GIS profession. The author also talks about the new Code of Ethics developed by URISA and now in use by the GIS Certification Institute

On a day-to-day basis we use rules of conduct to guide our actions and these are usually set within a moral standard about what a particular community thinks is right and wrong at a particular time. In Victorian England, for example, ladies were never present when business was being discussed. Ethics would have us step back from the rules of the day and think about our actions in broader perspective. What harm is there in talking to a woman about business? And is there a potential good for society in getting a feminine perspective?

The GIS professional has many opportunities to do harm and to do good. We all try to make the right decisions, but sometimes it is not obvious what that decision should be. There may be times when two courses of action appear right, but only one can be taken; for example, do you take a short-cut to get the job done on time or do you exceed the deadline and budget to produce a more robust product? Other times there is only one apparent course of action, but taking it somehow feels wrong. How do you recognize these problems and how do you think about the right solution? A solid background in ethics could help.

GIS Code of EthicspM

URISA (www.urisa.org), adopted a GIS Code of Ethics in April 2003. The code was developed to complement a GIS Certification program that URISA developed in cooperation with several other GIS-professional organizations in North America. It had become clear to people that GIS had all the aspects of a real profession except certification and a code of ethics. These developments filled that void.

The GIS Code of Ethics code_of_ethics.htm) sets out obligations that a professional has to each of the four major groups:

• Society as a whole (pre-eminent whenever a conflict arises)
• Employers and other funders
• Colleagues and the profession
• Individuals at large

The text itself is relatively short, only 1500 words including introduction and bibliography. Only general guidelines are provided, rather than specific rules of conduct. For example, the text says things like “Be objective, use due care, and make full use of education and skills.” It does not say things like which algorithm to use in a certain situation or whether a map legend is always required. The emphasis is on making GIS professionals aware of their actions and the impact of those actions.

Not having rules of conduct makes it difficult for a jury to judge whether a person is doing the right thing. This is one of the reasons why the GIS Code of Ethics was presented without apparatus for penalizing those who are thought to violate the code. Other reasons include concern over excessive resources spent on sanctions and concern over potential anti-trust lawsuits coming from those whose earning capacity is reduced.

A new GIS Certification Institute (www.gisci.org) was launched in 2004. This is an independent non-profit organization with a board of directors comprised of representatives from various partner organizations. URISA staff handles details on a contract basis for now. Applicants provide documentation of education, experience, and professional service. If approved as GIS professionals, they must agree in writing to work by the GIS Code of Ethics before they are granted their certificate.

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Ethics in GIS

Because people make critical decisions based on information communicated through GIS, the choices that GIS professionals make can have dramatic effects on the lives of people in the community. Within this social context, subtle and, often, hidden questions of right and wrong lurk beneath the nominally objective technologies and quantitative data sets.

Professional ethics are "the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group" (Merriam-Webster 2020) . While question of what is right and wrong is a highly-subjective topic has occupied philosophers and theologians for millennia, professional societies commonly promulgate codes of ethics that more-specifically define what is right and wrong within the norms of a particular business or field of study. While these codes cannot anticipate every scenario or provide easy answers in morally-ambiguous situations, they are a helpful guide for dealing with complex ethical challenges.

The GIS Code of Ethics

The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is "a nonprofit association that provides education and training, a vibrant and connected community, advocacy for geospatial challenges and issues, and essential resources for GIS professionals throughout their careers" (URISA 2020) .

On April 9, 2003, the URISA Board of Directors unanimously approved the following widely cited GIS Code of Ethics proposed by the URISA Ethics Task Force. The code is derived from similar codes uses by related professional societies, and incorporates comments from an extended period of public review. (URISA 2003) . URISA notes:

This code is based on the ethical principle of always treating others with respect and never merely as means to an end: i.e. deontology . It requires us to consider the impact of our actions on other persons and to modify our actions to reflect the respect and concern we have for them. It emphasizes our obligations to other persons, to our colleagues and the profession, to our employers, and to society as a whole.

Obligations to Society

The GIS professional recognizes the impact of his or her work on society as a whole, on subgroups of society including geographic or demographic minorities, on future generations, and inclusive of social, economic, environmental, or technical fields of endeavor. Obligations to society shall be paramount when there is conflict with other obligations. Therefore, the GIS professional will:

• Be objective, use due care, and make full use of education and skills.
• Practice integrity and not be unduly swayed by the demands of others.
• Provide full, clear, and accurate information.
• Be aware of consequences, good and bad.
• Strive to do what is right, not just what is legal.
• Make data and findings widely available.
• Strive for broad citizen involvement in problem definition, data identification, analysis, and decision-making.
• Donate services to the community.
• Call attention to emerging public issues and identify appropriate responses based on personal expertise.
• Call attention to the unprofessional work of others. First take concerns to those persons; if satisfaction is not gained and the problems warrant, then additional people and organizations should be notified.
• Admit when a mistake has been made and make corrections where possible.

Obligations to Employers and Funders

The GIS professional recognizes that he or she has been hired to deliver needed products and services. The employer (or funder) expects quality work and professional conduct. Therefore the GIS professional will:

• Be qualified for the tasks accepted.
• Keep current in the field through readings and professional development.
• Identify risks and the potential means to reduce them.
• Define alternative strategies to reach employer/funder goals, if possible, and the implications of each.
• Document work so that others can use it. This includes metadata and program documentation.
• Hold information confidential unless authorized to release it.
• Avoid all conflicts of interest with clients and employers if possible, but when they are unavoidable, disclose that conflict.
• Avoid soliciting, accepting, or offering any gratuity or inappropriate benefit connected to a potential or existing business or working relationship.
• Accept work reviews as a means to improve performance.
• Honor contracts and assigned responsibilities.
• Accept decisions of employers and clients, unless they are illegal or unethical.
• Help develop security, backup, retention, recovery, and disposal rules.
• Acknowledge and accept rules about the personal use of employer resources. This includes computers, data, telecommunication equipment, and other resources.
• Strive to resolve differences.
• State professional qualifications truthfully.
• Make honest proposals that allow the work to be completed for the resources requested.
• Deliver an hour's work for an hour's pay.
• Describe products and services fully.
• Be forthcoming about any limitations of data, software, assumptions, models, methods, and analysis.

Obligations to Colleagues and the Profession

The GIS professional recognizes the value of being part of a community of other professionals. Together, we support each other and add to the stature of the field. Therefore, the GIS professional will:

• Cite the work of others whenever possible and appropriate.
• Honor the intellectual property rights of others. This includes their rights in software and data.
• Accept and provide fair critical comments on professional work.
• Recognize the limitations of one’s own knowledge and skills and recognize and use the skills of other professionals as needed. This includes both those in other disciplines and GIS professionals with deeper skills in critical sub-areas of the field.
• Work respectfully and capably with others in GIS and other disciplines.
• Respect existing working relationships between others, including employer/employee and contractor/client relationships.
• Deal honestly and fairly with prospective employees, contractors, and vendors.
• Publish results so others can learn about them.
• Volunteer time to professional educational and organizational efforts: local, national, or global.
• Support individual colleagues in their professional development. Special attention should be given to underrepresented groups whose diverse backgrounds will add to the strength of the profession.

Obligations to Individuals in Society

The GIS professional recognizes the impact of his or her work on individual people and will strive to avoid harm to them. Therefore, the GIS professional will:

• Protect individual privacy, especially about sensitive information.
• Be especially careful with new information discovered about an individual through GIS-based manipulations (such as geocoding) or the combination of two or more databases.
• Encourage individual autonomy. For example, allow individuals to withhold consent from being added to a database, correct information about themselves in a database, and remove themselves from a database.
• Avoid undue intrusions into the lives of individuals.
• Be truthful when disclosing information about an individual.
• Treat all individuals equally, without regard to race, gender, or other personal characteristic not related to the task at hand.

Ethics Procedures

In 2009, DiBiase et al. proposed a seven-step procedure for ethical assessment that can be used to guide ethical decision-making.

• Step 1 : State the problem. For example, "there's something about this decision that makes me uncomfortable" or "do I have a conflict of interest?"
• Step 2 : Check facts. Many problems disappear upon closer examination of situation, while others change radically
• Step 3 : Identify relevant factors. For example, persons involved, laws, professional code, other practical constraints. For GIS projects, an appropriate professional code would be the GIS Code of Ethics given above.
• Step 4 : Develop list of options. Be imaginative, try to avoid "dilemma"; not "yes" or "no" but whom to go to, or what to say.
• Harm test: does this option do less harm than alternatives?
• Publicity test: Would I want my choice of this option widely publicized on the internet or on a television newscast?
• Defensibility test: Could I defend choice of option before Congressional committee or committee of peers?
• Reversibility test: Would I still think choice of this option good if I were the party adversely affected by it?
• Colleague test: What do my colleagues say when I describe my problem and suggest this option as my solution?
• Professional test: What might my profession's governing body or ethics committee say about this option?
• Organization test: What does the company's ethics officer or legal counsel say about this?
• Step 6 : Make a choice based on steps 1-5.
• Step 7 : Review steps 1-6. What could you do to make it less likely that you would have to make such a decision again? Are there any precautions can you take as individual (announce your policy on question, change job, etc.)? Is there any way to have more support next time? Is there any way to change the organization (for example, suggest policy change at next departmental meeting)?

Rebekah Jones (GISP), a geographic information systems manager at the Florida Department of Health, was tasked in May of 2020 with building a web dashboard to show county-level COVID data in the state. Her original dashboard showed that the state's positivity rating was around 18%, and that only two of the state's 67 counties met the state's criteria for easing pandemic lockdown restrictions. Her supervisor asked her to modify the calculations to change the positivity rate to the 10% needed to support reopening. (Wamsley 2020; Melendez 2020) .

Step 1: State the Problem

Jones was asked to modify calculations that would display what Jones felt would be an inaccurate representation of the risks of reopening the state.

Step 2: Check the Facts

Jones' task was to create a dashboard with county-by-county report cards on the COVID test results.

The test results showed only two of the states 67 counties were safe to reopen under the state's own criteria.

Jones' supervisor asked her to modify the calculations so the state would appear to be ready to reopen.

Jones did not have enough information to ascertain whether the supervisor was acting on their own or, more likely, under implied pressure from above.

Step 4: Identify Relevant Factors

The most obvious relevant criteria are from the Obligations to Society category of the GIS Code of Ethics :

• (questionable) Be aware of consequences, good and bad.

However, there are, arguably, conflicting Obligations to Employers and Funders :

• (debatable) Accept decisions of employers and clients, unless they are illegal or unethical.

Step 4: Develop a List of Options

Jones could do as directed and modify the dashboard calculations.

Jones could refuse to modify the calculations, resulting in an escalation of the conflict that could result in negative professional consequences.

Jones could alert the media to the modified calculations.

Step 5: Mentally Test the Options

• Modifying the dashboard would support a policy that would benefit the state's economy but hide the danger to residents' lives.
• Refusing to modify the dashboard would likely result in being removed from the project and having the dashboard removed or modified by someone else.
• Going to the media would likely result in professional harm to state employees and might not alter the state's reopening plans.

Publicity test:

• Jones would probably not want the choice to modify the dashboard made public.
• Jones would probably not fare much better if she refused to make the modification but then did not follow up to make sure the modification either did not happen or that the modification was publicized.
• Advocacy to postpone reopening might be reported negatively by pro-business press and result in harassment.

Defensibility test:

• Modification of the calculations would probably not be questioned since few people have a meaningful understanding of epidemiological statistics.
• Refusal to modify could probably be better defended as a moral decision, but not as an economic decision.
• Leaks to the press would not be viewed positively by conservative politicians or conservative peers.

Reversibility test:

• As a data scientist or member of the public, Jones would probably be livid to find that data she was relying on had been modified for political reasons.
• As a manager, Jones might be angered by insubordination.
• As a reporter, Jones would probably be delighted by a leak from the department.

Colleague test:

• Colleagues would probably be sympathetic to any choice since there is no obvious "good" choice.
• An ethics committee would probably be in favor of any choice that resulted in accurate information being made available to the public.

Organization test:

• The company ethics officer would probably be in support of options to provide accurate information to the public.

Step 6: Make a Choice Based on Steps 1-5

In the absence of an effective alternative, the safest option is to just make the requested changes.

Step 7: Review Steps 1-6 to Find Ways of Avoiding This Situation in the Future

Given the novel characteristics of the pandemic and the political peculiarities of Florida, it is difficult to imagine how Jones could have avoided this situation.

Jones ultimately refused to make the changes and was fired when she attempted to file a whistleblower complaint. The requested changes were made by another analyst. Jones went on to create her own website to display the data , but her home was subsequently raided by state police during an investigation into (possibly unrelated) unauthorized access to the department servers (Wamsley 2020; Melendez 2020) .

Today's class will be a discussion-based workshop covering professional ethics. This lesson incorporates materials from the GIS Professional Ethics Project at Penn State.

Review the GIS Certification Institute's (GISCI) Code of Ethics .

You will prepare and ethical analysis of a case study as a basis for discussion. Case study assignments are:

• Caribou Routes Case Study : Bachetti, Culp, Driscoll, Dillon, Duncan, Engebretson
• Low-Level Radioactive Waste Case Study : Hardy, Kahn, Longwell, Hall, Janosko, Kemna
• Environmental Justice Case Study : Malaika, O'Toole, Palazzo, Reichman, Leach, Miller, Moerson, Sapien

Prepare printed responses to the following questions and bring them to class as demonstration of preparation for discussion.

Final, corrected submission of your responses will be due on Canvas on Thursday night at 11:59pm.

For the questions below, you will use the seven-step guide to ethical decision making described above with the case study you have been assigned above. An example of the use of the seven-step guide is HERE...

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The GIS Professional Ethics Project: Practical Ethics Education for GIS Professionals

This is an author's manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published chapter [14] is copyrighted by John Wiley & Sons, Inc..

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Francis Harvey

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This chapter questions the adequateness of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) professional ethics by analyzing the URISA’s (“The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association”: the broadest association for GIS Professionals) Code of Ethics. It starts by a preliminary mapping of ethical issues raised by GIS. Its intent is to go beyond the traditional PAPA issues (Privacy, Accuracy, Property, Access) by taking into account issues such as space as a construed object, individual identity and the issues of scope and scale. After exploring various perspectives on professional codes of ethics, it considers how the field of GIS professional ethics have dealt with these issues and suggests a dichotomy between academic and professional ethics. It finally suggests to rethink the expert-lay people interplay when discussing GIS ethical issues.

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The development and use of geographic information system (GIS) within particular sociopolitical contexts means that ethical issues can arise both from how GIS is used and also due to the affordances and constraints of the software, hardware, and data. Ethics is a longstanding concern in the field of geographic information science (GIScience), arising amid the critical cartography and GIS and Society debates beginning in the late 1980s, in which human geographers and GIS scholars began to call for more attention to the implications of maps, GIS, and spatial data. Ethics in GIS draws on normative frameworks including deontological (duties and obligations) and teleological (consequences and outcomes) ethical perspectives, as well as nonnormative critical ethics to understand concerns that arise with GIS and map-based representation, uneven access to spatial data and technologies, and the use of GIS in geodemographic profiling, location analytics, and war. Attention to ethics in GIS has led to the development of ethics education, guidance, and codes of conduct for GIS users. Recent advancements in the availability of geolocated personal data, wider societal use of geospatial technologies, and data analytics have pulled GIS ethics to the forefront of the larger domain of information ethics, as location becomes increasingly central to wider ethical debates in the era of big data, automation, and artificial intelligence.

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This article frames the research ethics review process conducted by institutional review boards (IRBs) as an opportunity to enrich the education of geographers. Student participation in the IRB process enhances the education of geographers at the undergraduate and graduate levels in two key ways. Geographers can use participation in this process to demonstrate the relevance of a disciplinary code of ethics to professional practice. More important, such participation helps learners, particularly novices, conceptualize research as an ongoing process of intentional inquiry, in which the protection of research participants is vigilantly observed.

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Key Features: Written by a global group of contributors with backgrounds ranging from philosopher to geo-practitioner, providing a balance of voices. Includes case studies, showing where experts have gone wrong and where key organizations have ignored facts, wanting assessments favorable to their agendas. Provides a much needed basis for discussion to guide scientists to consider their responsibilities and to improve communication with the public. Description: Edited by two experts in the area, Geoethics: Ethical Challenges and Case Studies in Earth Sciences addresses a range of topics surrounding the concept of ethics in geoscience, making it an important reference for any Earth scientist with a growing concern for sustainable development and social responsibility. This book will provide the reader with some obvious and some hidden information you need for understanding where experts have not served the public, what more could have been done to reach and serve the public and the et...

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