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Data Policy

By Emergency Operations Portal

The imagery and information hosted on HDDS comes from many different sources. The images may be collected from public satellite sources or they may be contributed as licensed imagery by other partners or agencies. Based on the licensing or other provisions,  these contributed products may have restrictions on access, use, and redistribution. 

All restricted imagery delivered through HDDS will include a license file that describes acceptable use and citation requirements.

Public Imagery

Most of the satellite images supplied by U.S. Federal civil agencies are public domain (such as Landsat or ASTER). Aerial images from the HDDS "Baseline" area and post-event aerial images provided by Federal/State agency partners are often public domain as well. Some common examples include Civil Air Patrol (CAP), USDA, or NOAA.

All public domain imagery may be used, shared, transferred, or redistributed without restriction.  However, there should be acknowledgement of the image source within any derived maps, products, or publications. For information on requested citation information along with acceptable logos, please see Copyright and Data Citation.

All public domain images are designated as "Public" within the searchable metadata on the HDDS. This information is also included in the HDDS metadata file that is provided with the downloaded images. 

Restricted Imagery and Datasets

The imagery and datasets that are contributed by other partners or agencies for event response will often have license restrictions.

These restricted images and datasets are available for access only by individuals who are engaged in the response effort. The datasets may be used for response purposes only and must not be shared, transferred, or redistributed. They are not to be used for commercial gain.

All restricted images are designated as "Restricted" within the searchable metadata on the HDDS. This information is also included in the delivered image metadata file.

For images on HDDS that are designated as "Restricted," the user must be approved for Restricted event access on HDDS.  Before image download, the user will be required to submit a data access/use agreement on HDDS.  A license file will be delivered with the imagery, which will provide details on specific use restrictions and other requirements.

If you have any questions on use restrictions, please contact the EO liaison at: eo_liaison@usgs.gov