ABSTRACT
The Locus Charter is a set of proposed common international ethical principles to help users of location data to make informed and responsible decisions. The Charter was launched in 2021, building on work by two programs, the Benchmark Initiative in the UK and EthicalGEO in the United States, and on initial development in international roundtables. This chapter explores some of the ethical issues related to the development and operation of location data services, the role of codes of data ethics, and the background and rationale for the Locus Charter and its foundational ethics principles. We include the text of the Locus Charter. We then summarize some complementary programs that focus on data ethics challenges in specific areas of geospatial applications, and include the Gather principles for sanitation data, as an example. Finally, we consider how the Charter and other activity focused on ethical practice with location data might develop in the future.
