Following last year’s successful sessions at the 2009 AAG meeting on ethics and GIScience, we are organizing sessions to continue and expand discussions of this important topic. One year later, we still find that ethical engagements with the multitude of GIS applications and uses, whether surreptitious or overt, have marked recent developments in the field. Indeed, the variety of applications of geographic information science & technology (GIS&T) has led the U.S. Department of Labor to highlight "geographic technology" as the third largest high-growth job field for the 21st century. While the potential benefits and risks of geographic technologies are becoming well known, the ethical issues are less widely engaged. For instance:

1. •Geographic technologies are surveillance technologies. The data they produce may be used to invade the privacy, and even the autonomy, of individuals and groups.
   

2. •Data gathered using geographic technologies are used to make policy decisions. Erroneous, inadequately documented, or inappropriate data can have grave consequences for individuals and the environment.
   

3. •Geographic technologies have the potential to exacerbate inequities in society, insofar as large organizations enjoy greater access to technology, data, and technological expertise than smaller organizations and individuals.
   

Papers in this session engaged with the above issues in relationship to GIScience, including such topics as:

1. •case studies, curriculum development, or the pedagogy of teaching GIS ethical issues;
   

2. •issues of privacy, surveillance, inequity, erroneous or inappropriate data concerning geographic technologies;
   

3. •codes of ethics and conduct of professional organizations;
   

4. •GIS professional development;
   

5. •reflections on the changing nature of ethical issues in GIS&T
   

Discussions also connected to the ongoing NSF Ethics Education in Science and Engineering project, "Graduate Ethics Seminars for Future Geospatial Technology Professionals," where the goal is to develop course materials and other resources on applied ethical issues for the broader GIScience community.

A panel session and workshop “Teaching Professional Ethics” are also in discussion or planned. Please contact the organizers for further information.

These sessions were co-sponsored by the AAG GI Systems & Science and Ethics, Justice, and Human Rights Specialty Groups.