Producing Radiation Maps - Participatory Mapping: New Data, New Cartography - page 101

Two additional elements precipitated Safecast's
mobilization, namely the decreasing information on the
radiation situation from official sources, and the fact that the
data published on official websites was impossible to

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The government, I think it was in the 4th of the
5th week, started to hint that people should be
cautious about publishing anything about
radiation levels. As a general guideline.
Guidelines in Japan is like a semi-order, if you
are a media, or a university, or a company, you
basically follow the guidelines. So then, suddenly,
everybody became worried to talk about
radiation. So on the Internet, you'd see blogs, but
you would not see anything official coming out of
anywhere that would be detailed radiation data.
You would see the data, but you would never get
the data behind the map […] because the data is
not published. If you want to redraw your map,
you can't. You get the jpeg, but you don't get the
Google Maps [ Sic ]. Pieter Franken, interview,
August 30, 2011

As they obtained a number of sensors to start with, the
members of the Safecast association were able to boost their
radiation measurements. However, due to the low number of
sensors, a mobile system was preferred over base stations to
take the readings. This resulted in cars equipped with
sensors covering a grid of the country. Finally, as they
created their own sensors for the radiation measurements,
the bGeigie, they were able to develop these practices
through their members.

From the very start, the issue of licensing was central to
Safecast. Joi Ito, co-founder and consultant for the