Policy Interoperability: Creating the Policy Foundations for Interoperable EO Systems

As the number and variety of Earth observation (EO) platforms and data providers continue to expand, seamless data and service integration across these organisations is an important requirement. The CEOS Interoperability Handbook sets out a clear framework for addressing this challenge, focusing on five key factors: Vocabulary, Architecture, Quality, Interface, and Policy. Together, these factors help enable EO data and services to be discovered, accessed, exchanged, and used across different systems.

Policies are statements of intent that guide implementation of processes and procedures within an organisation. They may exist at the organisational, national, or government level and may carry legal obligations. Policy is the backbone of interoperability, as it shapes organisational decision-making, establishes guidance on how data and services are managed, and influences how information can be discovered, accessed, shared, reused, and redistributed.

Effective institutional mechanisms are needed to ensure compliance with policies and to support consistent decision-making. Therefore, interoperability depends not only on technical implementation, but also on understanding the policies governing EO data and services and identifying where they may create barriers to interoperability.

One example of a policy that drives interoperability through coordinated information sharing is the CEOS Missions, Instruments and Measurements (MIM) Database. It is the official consolidated source of information on CEOS Agency Earth observation satellite programmes and plans, with agencies providing annual inputs to ensure the information on missions and instruments remains accurate and up to date. Consolidating this information into one open-access resource gives the entire EO community visibility into present and future capabilities, allowing for coordinated future planning. The CEOS Interoperability Handbook recommends that organisations publish and regularly update their satellite information through the MIM Database.

Adopting open standards and specifications is equally essential. Organisations like the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) develop open standards that enable geospatial data and services to be shared, accessed, processed, and integrated across different systems and organisations. By adopting common standards, organisations can reduce fragmentation and improve the consistency and interoperability of EO data and services.

The CEOS Interoperability Handbook identifies twelve recommendations for the Policy factor, covering areas including collaboration and coordination, policy review and compliance, EO capability information, open standards and specifications, and open data. Together, these recommendations provide guidance for creating policy environments that support greater collaboration, consistency, and accessibility across the global EO community.

The community is invited to review and provide feedback on the Policy recommendations in the CEOS Interoperability Handbook on GitHub.

ID	Recommendations
POL#1	Data providers should participate and engage in relevant community groups/events, such as CEOS, GEO and CGMS, and their respective working groups. Interoperability requires collaboration and coordination between all actors within the sector.
POL#2	Identify policies in your organization/country related to data and services and conduct periodic check/audit for compliance to these policies. Identify policies which may be barriers to interoperability of data and services and flag them for resolution. Ensure the policies are clearly communicated to stakeholders.
POL#3	EO Capabilities: Publish and periodically update information about present and planned Earth observation Satellites in online databases, preferably the CEOS MIM Database. This will help in planning and overall coordination among different EO stakeholders.
POL#4	Open Standards and Specifications: Ensure your organizations implement open standards and specifications such as those published by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) for data and services. Drafting of new specifications for data formats, metadata formats and service APIs should be preferably done along with standards organizations, or developed by the open source community.
POL#5	Open Data: Organizations should ensure that Earth observation data is discoverable, accessible and proactively made available for use, reuse and redistribution to users in human and machine readable form, under an open license (see POL#8)
POL#6	Open Source Software: Where possible, share software applications as open source software, enabling others to use the same tools as are used internally to process or transform data products or to demonstrate the use of standards to access your data and services. An example of a preferred license is Apache 2.0.
POL#7	Open Science: Open Science policies should be implemented to ensure open access to data, software, and research publications, thereby facilitating collaboration, transparency, and reproducibility in support of interoperability.
POL#8	Data Licensing: Organizations sharing open and unrestricted data should license the data using an open license, consistent with their organization’s policy. A Custom license can restrict access for users. The GEO data licensing Guidance can be referenced for examples, including Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication (CCo), Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL) v1.0, or Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). CC BY 4.0 is preferred.
POL#9	Data Procurement from third party: Organizations planning to procure/outsource Earth Observation data, to possible extent should ensure that the data complies with CEOS recommendations, including those outlined in this handbook.
POL#10	Data preservation: Organizations should ensure that Earth observation data is archived and preserved according to CEOS best practices.
POL#11	Purge Alert: Organizations should use the purge alert service provided by CEOS WGISS before data and information removal from archives.
POL#12	Follow the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) principles to ensure data and metadata interoperability.