Futures of GIS - A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts - page 291

data infrastructures. Both of these developments rest on widely established
collections of easily accessible GI in clearinghouses and expertise resting
with the many private and public users of GIS.
For the next few years the development of GIS technologies will proba-
bly focus on location-based services (LBS). Location-based services can be
defined as technologies that add geographical functions to other technolo-
gies. The most common example is GPS-equipped phones. Originally devel-
oped to satisfy emergency services' requirements, the addition of GPS to
mobile phones has opened up possibilities for cellphone companies to
develop directory, mapping, and query services for consumers.
Right now, most LBS applications require programming or licensing
software that is added to a mobile phone or other hand-held device. The
next step in the eyes of many is the embedding of LBS with the functionality
of GIS in mobile and household devices (e.g., navigation aids that not only
find the theoretically shortest route from the store to your home, but also
take traffic into account and adjust the route accordingly). (See Plate 15 for
another interactive GIS application.)
The availability of such services depends on access to GI. Providing and
maintaining the levels of institutional support required for these types of
applications is very demanding and very expensive. A spatial data infrastruc-
ture (SDI) has become the way of thinking about aligning existing institu-
tions with these developing GIS applications. SDI developments have faced
enormous challenges. Costs are great, retooling existing institutions is always
difficult, and finding political support has been challenging. A SDI-based
approach seems the best strategy at the moment, but the difficulties have led
to the creation of application-orientated data providers that circumvent the
complexities of SDI and provide an easy-to-use and consistent system. The
development of standards for web mapping have been crucial to these
changes.
Indeed, the changes may be so significant that GIS begins to be recog-
nized by other names, or even disappears. What a mobile phone user
encounters when using a service to find nearby Italian restaurants has for
that person little or even nothing to do with GIS. If the GIS is critical behind
the scenes, it may only be relevant to a small group involved in the service's
development. Improved ease of use may bring about a change in how we
think about GIS.
What Are the Ethical Issues?
An important starting point for confronting any challenges related to geo-
graphic information is ethics, or the consideration of the principles of good
conduct and how we should act. Ethics is different from morals, which are
concerned with right and wrong and good and evil. GIS and mapping lead
to many complicated ethical questions. These focus on locational privacy,
surveillance, the collection and reuse of data, and the responsibility of pro-
fessional groups.