Google brings ‘Street View’ to India

Subject: Science and Technology

Section: Awareness of IT

Context:

For the launch this time, Google has partnered with two Indian firms – mapping solutions provider Genesys International and Tech Mahindra. As per the National Geospatial Policy, 2021, local companies can collect such data and foreign firms can license the data from Indian entities to serve their customers in the country.
The company also announced partnerships with local traffic authorities to help improve road safety and reduce traffic congestion.

Geo-Spatial Data:

Geospatial data is data about objects, events, or phenomena that have a location on the surface of the earth.
The location may be static in the short-term, like the location of a road, an earthquake event, malnutrition among children, or dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious diseas
It combines Information on:
- Location,
- Attribute (the characteristics of the object, event, or phenomena concerned),
- Temporal or time.
The past decade has seen an increase in the use of geo-spatial data in daily life with various apps such as food delivery, e-commerce or even weather apps.

National Geospatial Policy, 2021

Geospatial data will be freely available in India, specifically for Indian companies. The companies can self attest to government guidelines and start using geospatial data.

Restrictions under the present policy:

Only Indian entities can use terrestrial mapping and surveys.
The data generated also needs to be owned and stored in India.
High-resolution data—finer than 1 m horizontally and 3 m vertically—will still remain restricted.
Except for sensitive defence or security-related data, all other data can be accessed by Indian companies.
With this policy, Indian companies will be able to set up location services like Google Map in India.