Indian Mappers still under arrest, update

So the story of the arrested Indian Nokia map collectors we reported on a couple of days ago has started to gain some spread. Reported on EarthIsSquare Blog, SlashGeo ,with most of the discussion on Slashdot.

Still no response to my email to the press offices at Nokia.

I also sent an email with some questions to the guys in Biond. No response here too.

Am I the only one that thinks that a very large multi-national organisation should take some responsibility, or at least make a statement? They’ve been locked up for about two weeks now.

UPDATE: see the comments below this post for clarifications from Milind Dalvi.

Snippets:

All the work is being exclusively done for Nokia subsidiary Navteq

Survey team had carried with them a digital camera in their personal capacity and was used to capture photographs of themselves, places visited etc., like any other tourist would. Please note that this was not a part of their work and was done as a hobby / tourist activity. Amongst all the photos and video clips taken, there were a few that the Gujarat police found objectionable in light of the atmosphere prevailing after the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks.

Nokia Mappers Arrested in India

So, we mocked the UK government when they said that mappers were terrorists, but as Geocarta writes, two people in India, making a map with their GPS device have been arrested for this “reason”! Apparently they were working for the GI company Biond Software, collecting data for Nokia (and Navteq?). As of writing this post, the pair will be in day 7 in police custody.

Biond Softwares director Milind Dalvi, who came here and met the ATS officials, explained: ‘We have been commissioned by Nokia Navigator to do survey of major roads, terrain mapping and tourists destinations in the country using a GPS system. (source)

Citizens alerted the authorities after seeing the GPS devices on the cars. Then, after being arrested, they were futher doomed after the police saw that they were taking pictures of gates and walls, especially around an airport which has an army base next door.

From the India Times:

A police official told TOI that more than the data, the agency is interested in knowing to what end is the data used. “A detailed map can show strategic locations or disclose sensitive information, it can be used by terrorists or people with malafide interests. Thus, we are going through the maps and also questioning them about their clients,” said the official.

More info from India Times

From: http://geocartablog.com/?p=900

I’ve asked Nokia International for comment, but have yet to hear anything.
Edits: Nokia India’s press office email  at communications.india@nokia.com is not working  (user unknown error)!

december updates & talk-gb-thenorth

Busy couple of weeks, two BarCamps in Sheffield and Liverpool, AGI North in Leeds, and announcing today, the creation of Talk-gb-thenorth OpenStreetMap mailing list for the North of England.

With a lot more active users, interested people and mappers up north here, we’ve started a mailing list. A place to discuss local relevant issues, announce and plan events. We hope to start a few social / say trips out events around the region in the new year. All welcome to sign up!

Location and mapping technologies were in evidence at both BarCamps, with myself doing the OSM session at Sheffield, written about earlier. And John doing one in his home town of Liverpool. John brought a big A1 printout of Liverpool, with stickers so people could stick on the map the location of points of interests. A good idea. Oh, I came second place in a pitching competition for a pet (non-geo) project of mine, thanks Katie and sponsors for the prizes. For those who went to Sheffield, there’s a “viral” competition open, I made a slightly embarrassing entry, click & share the link, help me win and it may even make you laugh! 🙂

Geocaching, Iphone & location, GPS Art, Mobile & geo games, slippy maps were amongst the sessions held, there was quite a noticeable geo theme to the events. TheGeoWeb would be proud!

Recently in Leeds, I went to  poorly attended but very very good (and free) presentations of the AGI North SIG. Three presentations were from Neil Bendel representing the AGI Health SIG, Nick Armitage with the NHS Info Centre, and Andre Britten from Dotted Eyes (the winner of the new NHS Digital Mapping Agreement).

Interestingly, Dotted Eyes won the DMA from Ordnance Survey… they also offer NAVTEQ products and some additional products such as maintaining list of obsolete postcodes. They don’t have any data that shows footpaths, however, but only have cyclepaths – not really great for a Heath service that wants people to go out and be healthy. Also, there’s no direct way for ambulances out in the field to submit corrections to road networks (and they really need up-to-date maps), but they can send their DMA agent an email, and then the company would tell Navteq, and then they would have to request an update of the correct data. That’s really really un-easy.

Another interesting project from the NHS folks was about “Fruit & Veg Deserts” (not desserts!) project. The idea here is that you can map where shops have fresh fruit and veg available (oases), and see where there is a dearth of fresh food (deserts). Makes it easier to approach the smaller shops and say “look, here’s a gap in the market”.

Hathersage at Barcamp Sheffield

On the Sunday, a cold winters morning after partying, nine barcampers, including a family, headed off to the Peaks in Derbyshire to Hathersage – a pretty town, that was quite unmapped (before we went there!). We split up into groups and wandered around the village – our traces can be seen below:

We took the train from Sheffield to Hathersage, which gave allowed some time to get used to the gps units.

Wandering along quaint, but cold tracks, to mark those points!

Some of our group, being filmed by Bill:

of course, we met up in a pub, The Little John for extremely large plates of food, and beer.

All photos copyright Ian Ibbotson