This past week, on January 30, members of the Turkish parliament voted in favour of the proposed amendment to the National Geographic Information Systems law, regulating the acquisition, collection, dissemination and trading of spatial data.

With the law, the sole responsibility and authority on the national spatial data index is given to the Ministry of Environmental and Urban Affairs. Acquisition, collection, dissemination and trading of spatial data which is defined within the National Spatial Data Responsibility Matrix by third party individuals or legal entities are subject to prior approval of the ministry. Moreover, the approval will be subject to a fee of 25₺ for native, 50₺ for foreign parties per each 1/1000 plan corresponding to the study region(s) from the national topographical grid.

If not withdrawn or rephrased and applied in its full extent, the law will mean an end to volunteered geographic information in Turkey, and online non-profit data sources like OpenStreetMap.

The data layers which are included in the national spatial data responsibility list is as follows: