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- Benefits of sharing data
- Methods of sharing data
- Some examples of things subject to damage, deterioration or problems that the Guidelines will need to allow for:
- Site environment
- Decoration
- Archeological contents
- Paleontological contents
- Biological contents
- Anthropological contents
- Sediment disturbance
- Bat disturbance
- Cultural sensitivity
- Legal requirements
- Private landowner relations
- Land manager relations
- Visitor safety
- Country default protection:
This is where a country has a policy about the data suppression level for all caves in that country whenever they are displayed in the public domain. - What is the mechanism for designating a cave as sensitive?
- Do we need different categories of sensitivity?
- Will we need different solutions for the different potential problems causing a cave to be designated as 'sensitive'?
- What do we mean by cave "inventorying"? Does it include the physical features of the cave or only the cave's contents?
- How do we suppress the sensitive contents of a cave while still supplying its other, non-sensitive, data?
- How should cave data be handled by cavers for caves managed by a government agency that does not want any details published?
- What methods can be used to protect sensitive caves? e.g. suppress or blur location, do not list any sensitive contents, do not list the cave at all, other?
- There seems to be two main audiences for cave data: (1) readers of public domain data, who have an unknown and widely varying level of responsibility, and (2) legitimate and responsible users who need all the real data for research, management, exploration, or for formal protection. How do we cater for these two audiences?
- What practical methods are there for blurring a cave's exact location? A couple of examples:
* Rounding a cave's location co-ordinates to no closer than 10km grid ref or 5 minutes of lat/long, i.e. "coarse" locations.
* Substituting the location of the nearest town or locality. But this is not realistic in remote country. - It is good to be able to supply at least some degree of location data so that distribution studies are still possible even though there is not enough information to find the cave.
- If coarse locations are given then it is useful to have both grid references and lat/longs. Grid references for people who have access to maps with grid references, and lat/longs for people who do not have access to grid-referenced maps of the area, e.g. people in other parts of the world.
- List experiences in different countries about how they solved or came unstuck regarding data protection.
- If a cave's location or other data is suppressed then contact details for further information should be supplied, which also gives the opportunity for the legitimacy of the enquiry to be assessed.
- Cavers will not supply any information at all if they think that the caves might suffer by how that data was later handled, or they think there was a risk of it coming into the public domain without adequate safeguards. Therefore practical protection methods are needed if you hope to have cavers submitting any data.
- Methods for minimising the risk of well-meaning government agencies releasing location data for sensitive caves into the public domain, either accidentally or in ignorance of the issues. It does happen. Caves have suddenly appeared on a government map.
- Sensitive info such as exact locations, owner contact details or sensitive contents should not be included in any central or online database. Any online database can be hacked, and any central database (offline or online) is at least one step removed from the local data "owners", and so is likely to be less guarded and more susceptible to accidental, in ignorance or malicious distribution.
- Sensitive info should only be held in local databases where it is offline and guarded by people who are more motivated to protect it.
- Two situations that the Guidelines need to recognise are:
* a wiki style database, e.g. GrottoCenter, where anyone can contribute any data independently of the target country.
* bulk uploads of their data by the country data owners where they control the data content before sending it. - Stored data should include whether the cave is locked or not, and if locked, how to request access.
- We should seek input from cave managers too, private or government.
- Part of the Guidelines could be to promote minimal impact codes to users.