19th Annual New York State Geographic Information Systems Conference GIS -- Essential for the Modern World October 1-2, 2003 Holiday Inn - Turf, Albany, New York

Conference Abstracts

Conference Program and Registration Flyer .pdf file

Sponsors
Central NY Region of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
New York State Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination

GIS can help agencies, companies, and NGO's meet the challenges facing society in a time of increased demands but diminished resources. 

Starting eighteen years ago with a small gathering of early GIS users, the New York State GIS Conference has become a major GIS professional development opportunity for hundreds of GIS users in the state. Technical presentations feature working professionals who share their GIS experiences and solutions in dealing with real world problems like yours..

Keynote Speaker:  This year's keynote speaker will be Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor of Geography at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, speaking on Cartographies of Surveillance.

The emergence of geospatial technology as a highly effective and potentially invasive means of surveillance raises technical, ethical, and policy issues related to overhead imagery, integrated terrestrial surveillance, data integration, and locational privacy. Policy issues arising from aerial surveillance include “shutter control,” restrictions on the sale of imagery to enemies of American allies, law-enforcement applications, industrial spying, and recent troubling challenges to our “reasonable expectation of privacy.” In addition, terrestrial surveillance with video cameras, red-light cameras, automatic toll-collection systems, and gunshot-detection systems raise diverse questions about retention period, the out-sourcing of law enforcement, “market pricing” of public roads, and the nature of “public space.” Geographic information systems pose additional concerns related to “dataveillance” and geomarketing, online cadastres, crime mapping, and community notification of sex offenders. Questions include the public nature of “public data,” the possible use of crime mapping as a form of red lining, and the role of maps to aid—or limit—the shaming of pedophiles. Global positioning systems (GPS) and location-based services (LBS) raise a host of related issues focusing on locational privacy, including the need for an “opt-in” standard of locational privacy, location tracking as a substitute for incarceration, and the redefining of deviancy. Ethical issues focus on the relevance of technological determinism, the relative proportions of public and private control, and the need to provide means of redress of something when goes wrong. Not a jeremiad, this presentation is intended to promote informed skepticism among mapmakers and the public.

Banquet: Dinner cruise on the Hudson River $28.00 includes transportation to Captain JP Cruise. Link to Captain JP boat  captainjp