Location data is used increasingly in public and private life. Often, such data is linked to a person and becomes ‘personal location data’. The massive growth in mobile services and the ‘Internet of Things’ has increased personal privacy risks.

This has been recognised by action to strengthen the rights of data subjects in European Data Protection Regulation. On 25 May 2018, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force.GDPR includes location data explicitly for the first time in European Data Protection legislation.

The European Location Interoperability Solutions for e-Government (ELISE) action, which is part of the ISA2 programme is developing frameworks and solutions for location information in this context.

ELISE has prepared location privacy and GDPR guidance and incorporated the headlines in a European Union Location Framework Blueprint of location information best practices.

This workshop will highlight what is new in GDPR, how protections for data subjects have increased, and what preparations have been made by the location data community, both in the public sector and the private sector.

There will be a focus on location data case studies and INSPIRE data examples:

• How is GDPR being applied in Member States for INSPIRE datasets such as addresses and cadastral parcels?
• What are the implications for publishing metadata contact names or maintaining contact with those who have downloaded datasets?

The workshop will involve speakers from ELISE, a public administration, a private sector organisation and a geospatial industry body.

From the workshop, attendees will be better informed about GDPR and its impact for location data and INSPIRE.They will also be able to contribute to knowledge sharing on this important topic.

The target audience is public sector digital government, ICT, geospatial and INSPIRE actors and companies providing products and services supplying, processing or using location data. Participants are recommended to attend the accompanying ELISE workshop “Digital transformation and the future of SDIs”, which introduces ELISE and considers the role of SDIs and INSPIRE in the rapidly changing world of digital government transformation.

 Know more on "Location privacy" in the ELISE's dedicated space.