Learn more about the Norwegian spatial data infrastructure, laws and regulations and the Norway digital-partnership
Learn more about the Norwegian spatial data infrastructure, laws and regulations and the Norway digital-partnership
The Geodata Act, the Planning and Building Act and the Cadastre Act are of prime importance to the development of spatial data infrastructure in Norway
The Norwegian Geodata Act came into force in 2010. This Act implements the European Union INSPIRE Directive, regulating establishment of the Norwegian NSDI. Various detailed regulations have been added since 2012 as supplementary legal elements.
The Act regulates sharing of data from public agencies to be used in the private and public sectors.
National public agencies producing special data are the main target group for the Act. A series of technical and administrative requirements are defined which have to be resolved by the public agencies by specific deadlines:
The Norwegian mapping authority following up on public agencies, with guidance, but also controlling technical deliveries.
The Planning and Building Act provides a broad framework for regulation of Planning and Building Activities in Norway, regulating cooperation of the public, municipalities, county institutions and national public agencies via defined work flows.
As regards spatial data, the Act defines requirements relating to the establishment and maintenance of master plans, detailed zoning plans, reference data and sector-specific and environmental data to be used as input for Planning and Building Act processes.
The Act provides municipalities with responsibilities concerning the mapping of their own territory. This has resulted in the definition and development of the standardised product FKB, the joint technical spatial reference database, which now covers all municipalities. Municipalities are also responsible for maintaining cadastral data, with up to date information on properties, construction work and address information. The municipalities produce different kinds of detailed thematic maps.
The Planning and Building Act defines roles for the Norwegian Mapping Authority and other public national agencies by definition of a collection of defined themes; “public spatial data” (DOK).
The Act concerning a national land information register (the Cadastre Act) aims to ensure access to important land information by means of a uniform and reliable register (the cadastre) which is to be maintained of all real estate in the country, and by clarification of boundaries and property-related matters. Furthermore, the Act aims to ensure access to a joint geodetic reference framework.
The Norwegian Mapping Authority is coordinating the efforts of the municipalities in this regard. There is a national centralised system, and all municipalities send information from their local systems automatically in order to keep the central system updated. Cadastre APIs are available.
A series of other sector-specific laws include requirements relating to spatial data. These laws and underlying regulations may be from any sector, e.g. the Place Name Act, the Forestry Act, the Petroleum Act, the Cultural Heritage Act and the Nature Diversity Act.
There are also international conventions ratified by Norway, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The Norwegian NSDI organisation Norway Digital was established in 2005. The organisation now comprises more than 600 parties, all municipalities, all county administrations, some 100 public electricity companies and about 50 national public services and authorities, along with all ministries
The participation of each partner is formalised by means of an agreement. The agreement and its structure are standardised. The parties pay an annual fee in order to assist with financing basic data sets, and agree to share their own data in the infrastructure by adopting a common technical framework and use of some common standards.
The Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation recommends and mandates the Norway Digital organisation to act as the national agency for coordination of actions intended to encourage responsible public agencies to fulfil requirements defined in the Norwegian Geodata Act (2010) and underlying regulations.
Public agencies can apply to become partner organisations. Partnership is regulated by rules defined by the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation.
The parties have a mutual right to use one another’s data. All environmental data is free of charge anyway, and is distributed via open data licences. In practice, therefore, the Norway Digital agreement gives its partners the right to access and use different kinds of detailed reference data, with specific licence agreements and access keys. There are separate rules for cadastral data due to a governmental regulation.
Public agencies can further assign their rights and data to private companies for a limited time if the private company – an IT consultancy firm, for instance – is working on behalf of the public agency.
Private value-adding organisations have access to all open data under open data licences. Data under other licences, e.g. detailed technical maps, detailed ortophotos and geodetic services, can be utilised through separate commercial user agreements.
Norway Digital agreements give partners the right to access and use the following data
The Norway Digital agreement is divided into three parts/three documents