Security Exceptions to the Free Dissemination of Remote Sensing Data: Interactions Between the International, National, and Regional Levels

Abstract

International rules on remote sensing are generally silent on restrictions to remote sensing data dissemination in favor of broadly phrased principles of free collection and exchange of information. At the same time, those States and regional groups that have adopted specific remote sensing legislation typically focus on the security implications of such free data dissemination when applied to sensitive information. This chapter aims to give an overview of the meshwork - at the same time overlapping and partially lacunal - of international, regional, and national rules specifically adopted for the regulation of remote sensing activities, with a view of distilling the general benchmarks of a regime for the dissemination of remote sensing data, and the acceptable limitations for national security concerns. In so doing, the chapter aims to keep a clear focus on specific regulations rather than abstract tendencies. The discussion of every level therefore centers on a legal document deemed particularly emblematic of the regulation of remote sensing at that level. Reflecting this, the chapter is divided into the following sections: (I) the international level, analyzed through the lens of the 1986 United Nations (UN) Remote Sensing Principles; (II) the national level, illustrated by the comprehensive remote sensing regulation in the German Satellite Data Security Act; and (III) the regional level, where the interactions between the international and the national remote sensing rules are exemplified by the regulations of the European Union (EU) on data and information disseminated through the Copernicus program.