Satellite technologies are rapidly improving, offering increased opportunities for monitoring laws, and using images as evidence in court. Evidence from Earth Observation Satellites analyses whether data from satellite technologies can be a legally reliable, effective evidential tool in contemporary legal systems. This unique interdisciplinary volume brings together leading experts from academia, government, international institutions, industry and judiciary to consider many emerging issues surrounding the use of these technologies in legal strategies. Issues examined include the opportunities arising from technological developments, existing regulatory applications and operational experiences, and admissibility in courts and tools for ensuring the integrity of evidence. It also examines privacy impacts under existing legislation and provides a new conceptual framework for debating the acceptability of such surveillance methods.
Ray Purdy is a Senior Research Fellow in Law at University College London (previously Imperial College and the University of Oxford), where he has published and conducted research on satellite monitoring and the law for over fifteen years.
Denise Leung is a Research Analyst at the World Resources Institute in Washington DC. She was previously a Visiting Attorney at the Environmental Law Institute and a Research Associate at the Centre for Law and Environment, University College London.
"The text is not simply a formalistic treatment of the subject matter; it is rather a discussion on what is the state of the art and what could be the legal future for these applications. Therefore, the editors and the authors should be commended for their contribution to our collective understanding of the emerging legal issues surrounding the use of satellite data from earth observation."
Sergio Marchisio, ECSL News No. 40, March 2014, p. 13.
"This is a superb book, written with exceptional clarity by a stellarcast of authors from diverse disciplines. It will be useful to graduatestudents of Earth Observation Science, Policy Science and Law andto advanced scholars in all these fields. I can only hope that a bookwith similar breadth, depth and multi-disciplinarity will be writtenfor the use of EO data in the other stages of the policy cycle."
Yola Georgiadou, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 26 (2014) pp. 427–428.
Acknowledgements; Contributors’ Biographies; List of Abbreviations; List of Figures and Tables; Foreword Tanja Masson-Zwaan;
Introduction Ray Purdy and Denise Leung;
Part One: The Scientific, Technological and Policy Context
1. Technical Introduction to Satellite EO Shaida Johnston;
2. Science, Policy and Evidence in EO Ray Harris;
Part Two: The Use of EO Data at National Level
3. The Use of Satellite Imagery in Environmental Crimes Prosecutions in The United States: A Developing Area Kris Dighe, Todd Mikolop, Raymond W. Mushal and David O’Connell;
4. The Use of EO Data as Evidence in the Courts of Singapore Gérardine Goh Escolar;
5. Ten Years of Using Earth Observation Data in Support of Queensland’s Vegetation Management Framework Bruce Goulevitch;
6. EO in the European Union: Legal Considerations Sa’id Mosteshar;
7. Satellite Data as Evidence in the Courts of Taiwan Dennis Tsai;
Part Three: The Use of EO Data at International Level
8. Satellite Evidence in International Institutions Maureen Williams;
9. The Use of EO Technologies in Court by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Eya David Macauley;
Part Four: Privacy and Copyright Impacts
10. Outer Space Law Principles and Privacy Frans Von Der Dunk;
11. Privacy and EO: An Overview of Legal Issues George Cho;
12. The Impact of Copyright Protection and Public Sector Information Regulations on the Availability of Remote Sensing Data Catherine Doldirina;
Part Five: EO Data in the Courtroom: Judicial Perspectives
13. The Use of Remote Sensing Evidence at Trial in he United States – One State Court Judge’s Observations Merideth Wright;
14. Satellite Images as Evidence for Environmental Crime in Europe: A Judge’s Perspective Carole M. Billiet;
Part Six: Trust in and Transparency of EO Data
15. Authentication of Images Alan Shipman;
16. Introducing Digital Signatures and Time-Stamps in the EO Data Processing Chain Willibald Croi, Fréderic Foeteler and Harold Linke;
Pulling the Threads Together and Moving Forward Ray Purdy;
Selected Bibliography; Index.
All interested in legal applications and evidence from satellite technologies, including Governments, regulatory bodies, judges, legal practitioners, academics, students, international institutions, NGOs, standardization bodies, remote sensing companies and data sellers.