The Use of Public Information Technologies in Protection of Environmental Rights and Rights to Natural Resources

Abstract

The paper concludes that there is a lack of uniform judicial practice concerning the use of free geoinformation systems and cartographic services based on high-resolution satellite images in the field of protection of environmental rights and rights to natural resources.The author has defined additional criteria of relevance and reliability of public satellite images and parts of digital maps when they are used as evidence in the category of cases under consideration. Additional criteria for the relevance of such evidence should include: (1) the existence of geographical coordinates or their independent georeferencing and gridding by means of an existing or other program when compared with other images or digital maps; 2) indication of the date of shooting; 3) quality (clarity, high resolution, absence of clouds, fog and other visual “obstacles”), which allows us to “read” satellite image and parts of the digital map.An additional criterion for the credibility of such evidence should include the possibility of “double” verification. First, one needs verifying that the printout or screenshot of a page of the Internet site containing an image of a public satellite image or a part of a digital map correspond to the satellite image itself or a part of a digital map using the specified date, geographic coordinates, and scale. Second, one needs verifying that the information about circumstances recorded in public satellite images and parts of digital maps corresponds to the actual circumstances. In law enforcement, approaches contrary to screenshots of pages of Internet sites used as evidence have been determined. It is shown that the additional criterion of evidentiary relevance of screenshots in cases under consideration is characterized as sufficient.