Discussion to clarify interpretation of Limitations on Public Access and Use Constraints

[Sgaff]

Hi,

I'm looking at the INSPIRE guidance and contrasting it against GEMINI and I notice that GEMINI have very specifically phrased our equivalent of 'Conditions for Access and Use' to be 'Use constraints' and our text states "The purpose of this element is to describe any restrictions on usage of the data (as opposed to access)"

However, when looking at the INSPIRE guidance "inspire-tg-metadata-iso19139-2.0.1%20.pdf", it's clear that INSPIRE allow Conditions for Access and Use to cover constraints on both using and accessing the data, even though the information is held within a gmd:useConstraint element.

Reading back through the INSPIRE guidance on Limitations on Public Access makes me believe that for INSPIRE, that element is solely to record whether there are any limitations in accessing the resource that can be summed up in Article 13. If a limitation is not within Article 13, it gets set to noLimitations, but presumably INSPIRE's view is then that it is described within Conditions for Access and Use.

I'd appreciate a steer from the group as to whether I'm wildly mis-reading this, and look forward to a discussion.

Thanks

Sean

[PeterParslow]

The GEMINI WG discussion, back in 2018, tried to make it more clear in GEMINI than it is in INSPIRE which to use for what. I think we based our decision on the underlying ISO 19115 elements chosen, and on the fact that INSPIRE guidance suggests that a limitation/constraint on (public) access could be put in either of the places.

We reckoned that anyone looking at a GEMINI record without reading either the INSPIRE or GEMINI guidance would expect an element called "useConstraints" to contain constraints on using the data - not accessing it. While things in an element called "accessConstraints" would (obviously?) contain constraints on accessing the data.

So our aim was to make a decision for UK metadata creators wishing to express a constraint on access (rather than leaving them to choose which INSPIRE element to use) that we consider would result in a record that is clearer to interpret.

[Sgaff]

I can understand the decisions made by us back in 2018. I just wanted to check whether my interpretation of INSPIRE's Limitations on Public Access was right i.e. is it solely for reference against Article 13 or not? James R is our man in INSPIRE isn't he? Perhaps he could comment on this?

[PeterParslow]

Guidance 7 at Limitations on public access says

At least one limitation on public access shall give an INSPIRE reason

"If a limitation is not within Article 13", then the publisher / metadata creator would have to choose the nearest INSPIRE reason (which I would think is unlikely to be "no limitations"!), and give further information possibly in a second Limitations on public access

See also https://github.com/agiorguk/gemini/issues/17 - Defra will provide a mapping of the reasons that are acceptable under UK law for a public sector body not to allow public access to data. These only apply to some GEMINI record creators.

[archaeogeek]

@archaeogeek to have a go at an initial form of words for the guidance to take into account both this issue and #17. An example encoding will be needed too

[archaeogeek]

@archaeogeek to take text from https://github.com/agiorguk/gemini/blob/PeterParslow-issue-17/docs/partials/limitationsonpublicaccess.asciidoc and expand guidance point 17 as in comment above