Hostile cyber operations such as jamming and spoofing of GNSS signals are a growing concern. While they do not cause major damages to the satellite navigation system as such, they can have severe effects on critical national infrastructures and many other systems. Here, we address how international telecommunications law as well as the international law on the prevention of war apply in this context.

Warfare is increasingly shifting from physical to virtual. States are already conducting, or at least are preparing, to wage war in cyberspace. According to the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, cyberspace is “the environment formed by physical and non-physical components, characterized by the use of computers and the electro-magnetic spectrum, to store, modify, and exchange data using computer-networks.” To achieve objectives in or through cyberspace cyber capabilities might be employed (“cyber operations”). In the context of cyber operations that are undertaken to achieve the objective to cause injury or death to persons or damage or destruction to objects, some refer to the term “cyber-attack”, others refer to the term “cyber warfare”. Cyber operations directed towards particular radio signals or services are broadly referred to as “interference”. Overall, there is not yet commonly agreed terminology. Use of the above-mentioned terms does not necessarily imply that the cyber operations in question can be qualified as an attack, an act of war, or as interference in terms of law. To avoid confusion and legal pre-judgements, in the following the more generic term hostile cyber operations is used. 

Hostile cyber operations pose significant threats to space assets. Global navigation satellite satellites (GNSS) are specifically vulnerable in this respect considering the very low power of their signals and services. Due to their importance for military operations, for critical national infrastructure and key economic sectors, they may also constitute primary targets in future warfare. Several incidents of hostile cyber operations against GNSS, namely caused by jamming and spoofing, have been reported. Other types of operations against space assets, such as hacking or eavesdropping of communications satellite systems, are also technically possible, even if no cases have been publicly reported so far. 

Cases of jamming are often not intentional and often have only very short-term and geographically limited impacts. They only concern the national sphere of a State and are not caused by other State actors. However, hostile cyber operations are also conducted by States or non-State actors attributable to them. This is where international law becomes relevant. 

This article explores the international law applicable to hostile cyber operations against GNSS. Some commentators argue that international law falls silent in the face of the challenges of the digital age. However, it is common consensus among States that existing international law is also applicable to cyber operations, though most of the rules that may come into play were developed before the digital age. It is thus required to assess how to apply existing rules to hostile cyber operations. 

Legal Framework Applicable to Hostile Cyber Operations

Legal aspects associated to hostile cyber operations against GNSS mainly concern international telecommunications law, namely the ITU body of agreements and regulations on the use of radio frequencies, as well as the international law on the prevention of war (ius contra bellum).

The ITU Legal Framework

The functioning of GNSS is dependent on the use of dedicated radio frequencies. The international legal framework governing the use of radio frequencies is primarily determined by the ITU Constitution and the ITU Radio Regulations (ITU RR). In its Art. 44 (2), the ITU Constitution states that:

“Radio frequencies and any associated orbits […] are limited natural resources and that they must be used rationally, efficiently and economically […] so that countries or groups of countries may have equitable access to those orbits and frequencies.” 

As regards the utilization of this limited natural resource, Art. 45 (1) of the ITU Constitution provides that:

“All stations, whatever their purpose, must be established and operated in such a manner as not to cause harmful interference to the radio services or communications of other Member States or of recognized operating agencies, or of other duly authorized operating agencies which carry on a radio service, and which operate in accordance with the provisions of the Radio Regulations.” 

Article 1.169 of the ITU Radio Regulations (RR) defines harmful interference as:

“Interference which endangers the functioning of a radio navigation service or of other safety services or seriously degrades, obstructs, or repeatedly interrupts a radio communication service operating in accordance with Radio Regulations.”

According to Art 1.166 of the ITU RR, the term interference means: 

“The effect of unwanted energy due to one or a combination of emissions, radiations, or inductions upon reception in a radio communication system, manifested by any performance degradation, misinterpretation, or loss of information which could be extracted in the absence of such unwanted energy”. 

In the context of GNSS, interference is to be considered as harmful interference to the extent that unwanted energy endangers the functioning of a radio navigation service provided by such systems or prevents the proper use of such service. 

No ITU definition or rule specifically distinguishes between intentional and unintentional harmful interference. With multiple technologies, systems and operators operating in frequency bands for the radio-navigation service or nearby, the potential for unintentional interference is generally growing. Hostile cyber operations against GNSS, however, clearly fall in the category of intentional harmful interference.

Under the ITU Radio Regulations, States have the obligation to stop harmful interference to stations of other countries, independent whether the interference is caused by public or private stations. In addition, States have to observe the general obligation under Article 15 (4) of the ITU Constitution that: 

“It is essential that Member States exercise the utmost goodwill and mutual assistance in the application of the provisions of Article 45 of the Constitution and of this Section to the settlement of problems of harmful interference.” 

In case of harmful interference, States can request the Radiocommunication Bureau for assistance and the Radio Regulations Board (RRB) may be asked to intervene, Article 13 of the Radio Regulations: 

“When an administration has difficulty in resolving a case of harmful interference and seeks the assistance of the Bureau, the latter shall, as appropriate, help in identifying the source of the interference and seek the cooperation of the responsible administration in order to resolve the matter, and prepare a report for consideration by the Board, including draft recommendations to the administrations concerned.

When an administration so requests, the Bureau shall, using such means at its disposal as are appropriate in the circumstances, conduct a study of reported cases of alleged contravention or non-observance of these Regulations and shall prepare a report for consideration by the Board, including draft recommendations to the administrations concerned.”

Cases of unintentional interference can usually be solved by way of these procedures. However, the RRB lacks appropriate enforcement measures of any decisions taken in case of intentional harmful interference. When Iran in 2012 caused harmful interference to communications satellites operated by EUTELSAT, the ITU published the following statement: 

“(We are) extremely concerned and alarmed to witness a continuing situation in which satellites operating in accordance with the Radio Regulations and duly recorded in the ITU Master International Frequency Register (MIFR) are the targets of harmful interference. The attention of the Radio Regulations Board (RRB) and of recent World Radio Conferences has been called to such issues, and WRC-12 confirmed that any transmission which has the intent to cause harmful interference to stations of other administrations is an infringement of the ITU Constitution, Convention or Radio Regulations, and, that any station operating in the territory of an administration is under the authority of that administration, even if the station is not authorized. ITU appeals to all its 193 Member States to exercise the utmost goodwill and provide mutual assistance in the application of Article 45 of the ITU Constitution with a view to definitively settling any ongoing and future issues of harmful interference.”

Through the ITU, and eventually other through competent international organizations as well as diplomatic interventions, pressure can be increased on a State to stop harmful interference and to comply with its international law obligations. Not all cases will, however, be resolved by such means. 

International Law on the Prevention of War

Under international law on the prevention of war, hostile cyber operations against GNSS can eventually be considered as a threat or use of force (Art. 4 (2) UN Charter), giving rise to countermeasures by the State affected. Countermeasures by the affected State may also be employed in response to hostile cyber operations against GNSS that constitute a breach of any other international obligation (internationally wrongful act). Subject to specific conditions, hostile cyber operations may even be considered as an armed attack, allowing States affected to undertake individual action under the right of self-defence (Art. 51 UN Charter). Bearing in mind the potentially severe consequences of hostile cyber operations against GNSS, actions of the affected State in response may be based on the so-called plea of necessity. Collective action in response to hostile cyber operations against GNSS may be authorized by the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter when it determines that the respective cyber operation is a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.  

Threat or Use of Force

Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter states that 

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”

On the meaning of this provision, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held in the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons case that the rules governing the use of force “apply to any use of force, regardless of the weapons employed.” The rules governing the use of force may, accordingly, also apply to hostile cyber operations against GNSS.

The question is therefore not whether the prohibition of the threat or use of force is applicable to hostile cyber operations against GNSS but rather when it applies. The Tallinn Manual, which was prepared by an International Group of Experts at the invitation of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, provides guidance on this matter. The expert group found that “the mere fact that a computer (rather than a more traditional weapon, weapon system, or platform) is used during an operation has no bearing in whether that operation amounts to a ‘use of force’”. They continued that, “in the cyber context, it is not the instrument used that determines whether the use of force threshold has been crossed, but rather (…) the consequences of the operations and its surrounding circumstances.” In line with these findings, “a cyber operation constitutes a use of force when its scale and effects are comparable to non-cyber operations rising to the level of a use of force”. In absence of a conclusive definitional threshold, several factors were determined for assessing whether to qualify a cyber operation as a use of force. These factors include:

• severity;

• immediacy;

• directness;

• invasiveness;

• measurability of effects;

• military character;

• state involvement;

• presumptive legality.

Based on these considerations, a hostile cyber operation against GNSS can be qualified as an illegal use of force when its scale and effects meet a threshold that is comparable to non-cyber operations rising to the level of a use of force. This needs to be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis, bearing in mind the above factors. In case a cyber operation is to be considered as ‘use of force’, also the threat of such operation is illegal under international law. 

Armed Attack and the Right of Self-Defense

The classification of hostile cyber operations as a threat or use of force is not tantamount to an armed attack. Only the latter would grant the State affected the right to self-defense. Within the framework of the right of self-defense, a State can react to an armed attack with its own use of force, without itself violating the prohibition of the use of force. As the ICJ held in the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua case, an armed attack must constitute the “most grave forms of the use of force”. In other words, an armed attack “only exists when force is used on a relatively large scale, is of a sufficient gravity, and has a substantial effect.”

Whether this threshold for an armed attack is exceeded is subject to consideration in each individual case. However, an armed attack can be assumed if: “an act or the beginning of a series of acts of armed force of considerable magnitude and intensity […] which have as their consequence […] the infliction of substantial destruction upon important elements of the target State namely, upon its people, economic and security infrastructure, destruction of aspects of its governmental authority, i.e. its political independence, as well as damage to or deprivation of its physical element namely, its territory” occurs. (A Constantinou, The Right of Self-Défense under Customary International Law and Article 51 of the UN Charter, 2000)

In order to cross the threshold of an armed attack, hostile cyber operations against GNSS must therefore have significant and immediate destructive effects, either on the GNSS itself or indirectly. If hostile cyber operations can be considered an armed attack, states are not limited in their right to self-defense to own cyber operations. According to the principle of proportionality, the right self-defense is however limited to what is necessary for repelling of an armed attack. Conversely, if a hostile cyber operation is not to be considered an armed attack, affected States must resort to measures other than the use of force, such as countermeasures or measures compatible with the plea of necessity. A State shall, furthermore, not exercise its right of self-defense when the UN Security Council has already taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security under the system of collective security laid down in Chapter VII of the UN Charter. 

Countermeasures 

A State may always initiate countermeasures in response to hostile cyber operations against GNSS short of armed attacks, as far as such operations constitute a violation of international obligations and are conducted by or attributable to a State (internationally wrongful act). Countermeasures are possible in response to threat or use of force, harmful interference, or violation of an obligation under international law. Countermeasures are acts or omissions of the affected State against the responsible State which, in principle, would violate international obligations of the former towards the latter, but are justified as countermeasures because of the internationally wrongful act. An affected State may therefore be entitled to act contrary to its international law obligations to ensure that the other State refrains from hostile cyber operations. Limitations on the use of countermeasures in the context of cyber operations include that

• countermeasures may only be taken against States;

• the State must be responsible for the violation (attribution of acts and omissions of non-State actors are of particular concern in this context);

• the countermeasures are taken in order to persuade the responsible State to resume compliance with its international obligations;

• countermeasures must be proportionate to the injury to which they respond. 

Plea of Necessity

A State affected by hostile cyber operation against GNSS, which represents a serious and imminent danger to an essential interest of the affected States, may invoke the so-called plea of necessity. Actions in response to such serious and imminent peril to an essential interest may also include actions which would otherwise be illegal under international law when doing so is the sole means of safeguarding it. According to the official commentary to the Draft articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, “[t]he term “necessity” (état de nécessité) is used to denote those exceptional cases where the only way a State can safeguard an essential interest threatened by a grave and imminent peril is, for the time being, not to perform some other international obligation of lesser weight or urgency.” 

Unlike countermeasures, the plea of necessity does not require that the peril is attributable to another State, nor does it require the prior unlawful conduct of another State. Thus, a State may resort to the plea of necessity in response to hostile cyber operations against GNSS, if the exact nature and origin of such operations are unclear or if the operations cannot be reliably attributed to another State. To safeguard against possible abuse, these special features make it necessary that the plea of necessity is subject to strict limitations. These limitations include:

• that necessity may only be invoked to safeguard an essential interest;

• that, whatever the interest may be, it needs to be threatened by a grave and imminent peril;

• that this peril needs to be imminent;

• that States are obliged to resort to other (otherwise lawful) means available, even if they may be more costly or less convenient;

• that the conduct of a State to safeguard an essential interest must not seriously impair an essential interest of the other State or States concerned, or of the international community as a whole;

• that necessity cannot be invoked, if the State in question has contributed to the situation of necessity.

Collective Security

If the UN Security Council determines that there is a threat to peace, a breach of peace or an attack, it will decide which measures are to be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security. Within this context, the UN Security Council may authorize measures which may not necessarily involve the deployment of armed forces or measures by air, sea or land. In fact, measures approved by the UN Security Council as a reaction could also include cyber operations.

Depending on the individual case and its specific implications, the UN Security Council may determine that hostile cyber operations against GNSS pose a threat to peace, a breach of peace or an act of aggression. While the Security Council must determine that one of these cases is met, it has become standard practice for the Security Council to make a general statement in the respective resolution that it is acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. 

GNSS Vulnerability and Recent Cases 

Reports of cyber operations against GNSS so far almost exclusively concern jamming and spoofing of GNSS signals. 

Jamming refers to the interruption of a receiver’s communication with a satellite by superimposing the signals sent to or from the satellite. In practice, this is done by using a signal with the same frequency but with significantly higher power. From a technical point of view, the term satellite jamming thus refers to the flooding or overpowering of the targeted radio frequencies with electronic noise, so that the disturbed signals do not reach their destination. 

Spoofing, in contrast, refers to the mimicking of the characteristics of a true signal so that the user receives the counterfeit (spoofed) signal instead of the real one. In June 2012, a team at the University of Texas at Austin demonstrated the controlled capture of a civil drone using spoofing technology.

Neither jamming nor spoofing directly cause physical damage or destruction of the station emitting or receiving GNSS signals. As a direct consequence, they result in 

• partial or complete loss of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services; and

• jumps in time, position, or direction resulting in reduced accuracy. 

However, the partial and complete loss of PNT services or jumps in time, position, or direction may have severe secondary effects, some of which may affect critical national infrastructures or other important systems and applications. 

In the following, some examples of reported cases are provided. 

In January 2007, there was an approximately two-hour GPS outage in San Diego, California. Due to the failure, the system for tracking arriving aircraft at the airport did not function correctly. In the harbour, the traffic management system failed. The Naval Medical Centre reported a malfunction of its medical paging system. In addition, disbursement orders at ATMs were rejected. According to reports, the failure was related to unintentional interference caused by a U.S. Navy training exercise. 

In March 2011, a De Havilland DHC-7 U.S. spy aircraft carrying out joint exercises with South Korea was allegedly forced to perform an emergency landing in reaction to GPS jamming from the vicinity of the exercise.

In March 2016, a South Korean representative informed the general public that GPS signals in Seoul and Incheon were being jammed by radio waves from beyond the national border. According to South Korea, the disruptive signals were emanating from Haeju and Mount Kumgang in North Korea. In a letter dated April 2016 to the UN Security Council, South Korea held that the alleged GPS downlink jamming by North Korea “poses a threat to the security of the Republic of Korea and undermines the safety of civil transportation, including aircraft and vessels”. In June 2016, the board of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) decided to send a warning to North Korea with regard to the GPS jamming in South Korea.

Between June and October 2017, over 600 spoofing incidents were reported in the Black Sea. Spurious GPS signals allegedly placed seagoing vessels hundreds of miles from their true position. Whilst some commentators presumed that Russia was testing a new system for spoofing GPS, others concluded that the spoofing was probably not done on purpose, but rather resulted from a GPS re-radiator transmitter located at an airport. 

In October 2018, the Finnish and Norwegian aviation authorities issued a warning to commercial pilots operating flights in the Arctic Circle. According to this warning, GPS signals in the region were severely disturbed, so pilots were advised to use other navigation methods to land at the northernmost airports of the countries. A respective jamming of GPS signals has allegedly been discovered in the Norwegian border areas close to Russia’s Kola Peninsula. Some Norwegian representatives speculated that this was just a careless side effect of Russian military exercises. Others presumed that they were part of a larger geopolitical strategy. 

In the same month, just days before the start of Trident Juncture, NATO’s largest military exercise since the Cold War, Norway issued a similar warning and again indicated a Russian involvement in disrupting the signals. 

Irrespective whether or not the above-mentioned incidents were deliberately caused by hostile cyber operations of States, they provide clear evidence on the potential secondary effects of jamming and spoofing of GNSS signals on critical national infrastructures and many other systems and applications.

A UK Government study on critical dependencies on satellite-derived time and position signals concluded that GNSS signals “are inherently weak and vulnerable to interference. Receivers struggle in built-up environments. Meanwhile, the threats posed by accidental and deliberate interference and cyber-attack are steadily evolving.” According to the study, critical infrastructures vulnerable for hostile cyber operations against GNSS include:

• Communications—using GNSS for timing, synchronization and provision of reference frequencies;

• Emergency services—using GNSS data from a caller’s phone to locate the emergency; and navigating there rapidly and successfully;

• Energy—using time synchronization for the transmission of electricity across a country or region;

• Finance—using GNSS precision timing for transactions driven by algorithmic trading;

• Food—using GNSS signals for precision agriculture, as well as for just-in-time supply chains; 

• Transport—using GNSS for air-, road-, rail-, and marine-navigation, whilst a country as a whole relies on the logistics and travel networks enabled by these sectors. 

On GNSS vulnerabilities of air traffic for cyber operations such as jamming or spoofing, ICAO endorsed Recommendation 6/7 on assistance to States in mitigating GNSS vulnerabilities at the 12th Air Navigation Conference in 2012. The Recommendation provides that States shall develop a mechanism with the ITU and other appropriate UN bodies to address specific cases of harmful interference of GNSS signals reported by States to ICAO. According to Recommendation 6/8 of the same 2012 Air Navigation Conference, it is the responsibility of ICAO Member States to 

• assess the likelihood and effects of GNSS vulnerabilities in their airspace and apply, as necessary, recognized and available mitigation methods; 

• provide effective spectrum management and protection of GNSS frequencies to reduce the likelihood of unintentional interference or degradation of GNSS performance; 

• report to ICAO cases of harmful interference with GNSS that may have an impact on international civil aviation operations; 

• develop and enforce a strong regulatory framework governing the use of GNSS repeaters, pseudolites, spoofers, and jammers.

Classifying Hostile Cyber Operations

Bearing in mind the potential effects of GNSS jamming and spoofing on critical infrastructures, the questions arise as to whether these effects reach the threshold of harmful interference, of the threat or use of force, or of an armed attack and what actions can lawfully be undertaken by affected States. 

GNSS jamming and spoofing are clearly cases of interference, since they cause performance degradation, misinterpretation, or loss of information. As they endanger the functioning of the radio navigation services provided by the GNSS, they are also to be considered as harmful interference in terms of the ITU’s legal framework. 

The potential effects of cyber operations against GNSS on critical infrastructures can have such scale and effects that they can reach a threshold comparable to non-cyber operations rising to the level of a use of force. However, it might be difficult to identify the originator of the cyber operations in question. In case the operations are undertaken by non-State actors, attribution of the action to a State may also not be easy. Furthermore, damages are often not a direct consequence of the cyber operations. As an example, decisions made by a pilot in the course of manual navigation due to GNSS signal outage or degradation caused by jamming could lead to a collision. Nonetheless, it might be difficult to establish a direct causal link between the act of jamming and the collision, as it is rather the direct consequence of the decisions made by the pilot. However, if a navigation system of an autonomous system is intentionally spoofed to cause a collision, a direct causal relationship between the act of spoofing and the collision may be established. 

In extremely rare circumstances, the scale and effect of jamming or spoofing of GNSS signals may cross the threshold of an armed attack giving rise to the right of self-defence. When assessing whether the threshold of an armed attack is reached, it should be taken into account that the right of self-defence is one of the rare exceptions of the prohibition to use force under international law and therefore requires a narrow interpretation. An armed attack should thus not easily be assumed in the context of hostile cyber operations against GNSS. Cyber operations that involve a temporary or geographically limited interruption of non-essential services should not qualify as an armed attack. Even if the source of the attack can be located and attributed to a State, additional conditions must be fulfilled before the right of self-defense can be actually exercised, particularly the condition that the attack must still be ongoing.

An U.S. Air Force official recently made clear that in case U.S. satellites were attacked (by hostile cyber operations), there is no ambiguity that “the right to use force in self-defence applies”. This does not mean that a State can easily resort to the right of self-defense. It rather means that, in the view of the U.S. Air Force, the right of self-defense is generally applicable in the context of hostile cyber operations against space assets. 

In response to jamming or spoofing which does not reach the threshold of an armed attack, but which is otherwise contrary to international law, States may resort to countermeasures to cause the responsible State to resume compliance with its international obligations, namely, not to cause harmful interference. Such countermeasures may also include own hostile cyber operations. For example, an affected State may be entitled to also jam or spoof signals of the State which is the originator of hostile cyber operations to cause it to resume compliance with its international obligations. However, the State resorting to countermeasures must notify the originator of such jamming and/or spoofing activities and must offer negotiations. Additionally, States shall not resort to the right of countermeasures when the internationally wrongful act has already ended. Accordingly, it is required that the jamming and/or spoofing is still ongoing or is likely to be repeated. On the potential use of countermeasures in response to hostile cyber operations against space assets, an U.S. Air Force official stated that “below an armed attack, the most applicable response is a countermeasure”. At the same time, he admitted the shortcomings of the use of countermeasures in response to hostile cyber operations against space assets, such as the requirement of proportionality.

If the hostile cyber operation against GNSS signals has been carried out by non-State actors that cannot be attributed to any State, the affected State cannot respond by resorting to countermeasures, as these are only allowed against States. In such case, the affected State can however take action based on the plea of necessity, arguing that the hostile cyber operations against GNSS constitute a grave and imminent peril to essential interests of the State. The notion of essential interest is vague in international law and its interpretation may vary from State to State. In case a GNSS or other system which rely on GNSS signals is designated as a critical infrastructure, this may indicate its essentiality. Nonetheless, a mere unilateral description of infrastructure as critical should not be sufficiently determinative. Furthermore, even if jamming or spoofing of GNSS signals may target an infrastructure of essential interest, the harm posed to that interest must be grave. A minor degradation of service or mere inconvenience therefore would not suffice to resort to the plea of necessity. If jamming or spoofing of GNSS signals targets critical infrastructure in a manner that causes severe negative impacts on a State’s security, economy, public health, safety, or environment, e.g. ground flights nation-wide or halt all train traffic, clear grounds for the plea of necessity should be given. 

Collective actions in response to jamming or spoofing of GNSS signals, including forcible or non-forcible (cyber-)measures, may be authorized by the UN Security Council when it determines that the jamming or spoofing constitutes a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or an act of aggression. Even though the UN Security Council did so far not qualify hostile cyber operations accordingly, it would be within its authority. In view of the above-mentioned cases, it can however be doubted whether the UN Security Council will ever reach such decision with its current composition.

Conclusions 

Hostile cyber operations such as jamming and spoofing of GNSS signals are becoming a growing concern. Even though jamming and spoofing do not cause substantial damages to the satellite navigation system as such, they potentially have severe (secondary) effects on critical national infrastructures and many other systems and applications. Technology demonstrations such as the capturing of a drone using spoofing technology further underline how these technologies can be employed as means of cyber warfare. 

International telecommunications law as well as the international law on the prevention of war are generally applicable in the context of hostile cyber operations. 

Under the ITU legal framework, jamming and spoofing qualify as harmful interference if they cause performance degradation, misinterpretation, or loss of information of the targeted systems, signals and services. While States are generally obliged to eliminate harmful interference, the ITU lacks effective enforcement measures. Intentional harmful interference caused by hostile cyber operations may not always be prevented by the measures available. 

The application of the laws on the prevention of war, in contrast, strongly depends on the concrete effects of the hostile cyber operation in the individual case. While hostile cyber operations may potentially have severe (secondary) effects, these should not be overestimated in terms of the applicable public international law. As with the use of conventional weapons, only activities with most severe impacts may qualify as armed attacks conferring the right to self-defence. Nor are such activities necessarily a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression potentially giving rise to collective action authorized by the UN Security Council. Below the level of an armed attack or a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, hostile cyber operations may however be qualified as threat or use of force or as the breach of any other international obligation. In such case, the State affected may take countermeasures within the limits of proportionality. The State resorting to countermeasures must notify the originator State of such jamming and/or spoofing activities and must offer negotiations. 

As the scope of international law is limited to State actors (and other subjects of international law such as international organizations) attribution will, in practice, be difficult when hostile cyber operations are undertaken by non-State actors. 

Additional Resources

(1) Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1945, 1 UNTS XVI, under http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/  

(2) Constitution and Convention of the International Telecommunication Union, 1 July 1994, 1825 UNTS 1826, under https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%201825/volume-1825-I-31251-English.pdf 

(3) Curran et. al., A Look at the Threat of Systematic Jamming of GNSS, Inside GNSS September/October 2017, 46, under http://www.insidegnss.com/auto/sepoct17-CURRAN.pdf 

(4) Dovis (ed), GNSS—Interference Threats and Countermeasures, 2015

(5) Fouche and Adomatis, Joining Finland, Norway says Russia may have jammed GPS signals in Arctic, 2018, under https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nordic-russia-defence/joining-finland-norway-says-russia-may-have-jammed-gps-signal-in-arctic-idUSKCN1NI267

(6) Goff, Reports of Mass GPS Spoofing Attack in the Black Sea Strengthen Calls for PNT Backup, Inside GNSS 24 July 2017, under http://www.insidegnss.com/node/5555 

(7) Goff, South Korea Developing an eLoran Network to Protect Ships from Cyber Attacks, Inside GNSS 23 August 2017, under http://www.insidegnss.com/node/5598

(8) International Civil Aviation Organization, Recommendation 6/7 of the 12th Air Navigation Conference (2012)—Assistance to States in mitigating global navigation satellite system vulnerabilities

(9) International Civil Aviation Organization, Recommendation 6/8 of the 12th Air Navigation Conference (2012)—Planning for mitigation of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) vulnerabilities

(10) International Court of Justice, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996, p. 226, under http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/95/095-19960708-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf 

(11) International Court of Justice, Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America). Merits, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14, under http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/70/070-19860627-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf 

(12) International Law Commission, Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with commentaries, Annex to General Assembly resolution 56/83 of 12 December 2001, under http://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_6_2001.pdf 

(13) International Telecommunication Union Radio Regulations, Edition of 2016, under https://www.itu.int/pub/R-REG-RR/en 

(14) Nilsen, Construction workers frustrated with GPS jamming near border to Russia, 2019, under https://rntfnd.org/2019/02/11/gps-jamming-interferes-with-construction/

(15) Nilsen, Norway Jammed Again—Replacing South Korea as Nation with the “Most Jammed GPS?”, 2019, under https://rntfnd.org/2019/01/11/norway-jammed-again-replacing-south-korea-as-nation-with-most-jammed-gps/

(16) Nilsen, Norway tired of Russia’s electronic warfare troubling civilian navigation: “Unacceptable and risky”, 2019, under https://rntfnd.org/2019/01/21/norway-protests-regular-russian-jamming-gps-barents-observer/

(17) Rawnsley, North Korean Jammer Forces Down U.S. Spy Plane, Wired 9 December 2011, under https://www.wired.com/2011/09/north-korean-jammer-forces-down-u-s-spy-plane/ 

(18) Roscini, Cyber Operations and the Use of Force in International Law, 2014

Schmitt / Vihul (eds), Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations, 2017

(19) Scott, Spoofing—Upping the Anti, Inside GNSS July/August 2013, 18, under https://insidegnss.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IGM_TLS07_13.pdf 

(20) Scott, Spoofs, Proofs & Jamming – Towards a Sound National Policy for Civil Location and Time Assurance, Inside GNSS September/October 2012, 42, under https://insidegnss.com/spoofs-proofs-jamming/ 

(21) Tsagourias and Buchan, Research Handbook on International Law and Cyberspace, 2017

(22) UK Government Office for Science, Satellite-derived Time and Position: A Study of Critical Dependencies, 2017, under https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/676675/satellite-derived-time-and-position-blackett-review.pdf 

(23) Ward, Interference & Jamming – (Un)intended Consequences, Inside GNSS March/April 2012, 28, under http://www.insidegnss.com/auto/IGM_TLS07_12.pdf 

(24) Wright, Grego and Gronlund, The Physics of Space Security: A Reference Manual, 2005, under https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nwgs/physics-space-security.pdf

Authors

Ingo Baumann is the column editor for GNSS & the Law, and the co-founder and partner of BHO Legal in Cologne, Germany, a boutique law firm for European high technology projects mainly in the space sector. Ingo studied law at the Universities of Muenster and Cologne. His doctoral thesis, written at the Institute for Air and Space Law in Cologne, examined the international and European law of satellite communications. Baumann worked several years for the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), including as head of the DLR Galileo Project Office and CEO of the DLR operating company for the German Galileo Control Center.

Erik Pellander is research assistant at BHO Legal since 2011. Before. Erik working at the Institute of Air and Space Law, Cologne, as well as at the legal department of the German Space Agency (DLR). During his studies, he was a scholarship student of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at the National Law School of India University in Bangalore. Erik was the winner of the 2010 European Regional Round of the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition and is author of several publications in the area of space law and international environmental law.

Nana Baidoo is associate lawyer at BHO Legal since 2018. His practice focuses on public procurement law, contract law and export control law, particularly with regard to aerospace, defence and security programs. Nana studied law at the Universities of Muenster and Bristol (UK). In the course of his legal clerkship, Nana passed through training stations at the ICT/Aerospace/Defence teams of a leading German law firm as well as at Airbus Defence & Space’s export compliance division. Nana is a reserve officer of the German Armed Forces in the rank Major, member of the German Reservists Association (VdRBw), and German delegate for the CIOR Young Reserve Officers Committee. 

Ingo Baumann is the column editor for GNSS & the Law, and the co-founder and partner of BHO Legal in Cologne, Germany, a boutique law firm for European high technology projects mainly in the space sector. Ingo studied law at the Universities of Muenster and Cologne. His doctoral thesis, written at the Institute for Air and Space Law in Cologne, examined the international and European law of satellite communications. Baumann worked several years for the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), including as head of the DLR Galileo Project Office and CEO of the DLR operating company for the German Galileo Control Center.  

The post GNSS Cybersecurity Threats: An International Law Perspective appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Prior to the GDA, the primary guidance for the coordination of spatial activities by the federal government (i.e. the collection, use, sharing and dissemination of geospatial information) was Office of Management and Budget (OMB) revised Circular A-16 and related guidance. The GDA codifies many elements of Circular A-16. However, it further clarifies the role of government agencies and should give Congress greater insight into how government agencies in the U.S. collect and use geospatial information. 

Geospatial data is defined in the GDA as “information that is tied to a location on the Earth, including by identifying the geographic location and characteristics of natural or constructed features and boundaries on the Earth, and that is generally represented in vector datasets by points, lines, polygons, or other complex geographic features or phenomena.” Geospatial information can be derived from a number of sources, including “remote sensing, mapping, and surveying technologies” and “images and raster datasets, aerial photographs, and other forms of geospatial data or datasets in digitized or non-digitized form”

However, certain types of geospatial data are specifically carved out from the GDA. These include: 

(i) geospatial data and activities of an Indian tribe not carried out, in whole or in part, using Federal funds, as determined by the tribal government; 

(ii) classified national security-related geospatial data and activities of the Department of Defense, unless declassified; 

(iii) classified national security-related geospatial data and activities of the Department of Energy, unless declassified; 

(iv) geospatial data and activities under chapter 22 of title 10, United States Code, or section 110 of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 3045); 

(v) intelligence geospatial data and activities, as determined by the Director of National Intelligence; and 

(vi) certain declassified national security-(vi)related geospatial data and activities of the intelligence community, as determined by the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Energy, or the Director of National Intelligence.

Those familiar with OMB Circular A-16 will recognize many of the elements of the GDA. For example, Section 753 codifies the fundamental role of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) in geospatial information management in the U.S. The FGDC remains within the Department of Interior and is designated as the primary entity for developing, implementing and reviewing the policies, practices, and standards relating to geospatial data pursuant to OMB guidance. It is also responsible for developing and maintaining a strategic plan for the development and implementation of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.” The GDA continues the concept of designated government agencies being responsible for the management of “data themes” and related or supporting resources, services and products. Additional responsibilities for such agencies include coordinating with other stakeholders, protecting privacy, and using geospatial data standards. Section 754 of the GDA establishes the National Geospatial Advisory Committee.  This section formalizes and builds upon the current NGAC, which was created by the Secretary of Interior in 2008 as a Federal Advisory Committee. In addition, Section 758 describes the role of the Geospatial Platform as “an electronic service that provides access to geospatial data and metadata for geospatial data to the public.”

However, there are several differences between the GDA and current practice in the United States. For example, the GDA changes the composition of the existing FGDC Steering Committee. Most notably the Department of Defense is not included, although the Director of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has the right to appoint a member to FGDC. The roles and responsibilities of the FGDC and the NGAC also are broader than current practice. For example, the FGDC has reporting requirements to Congress on the status of data themes and achievements of relevant government agencies; NGAC can request information directly from government agencies, upon concurrence of the chair of the FGDC. In addition, the GDA also increases the transparency in the collection and use of geospatial information within the government by requiring agencies to include geospatial data in budget submissions. Also of note, Section 759C provides that government agencies “may, to the maximum extent practical, rely upon and use the private Sector in the United States for the provision of geospatial data and services”.

By codifying many elements of existing geospatial information management policies in the U.S. the GDA is certainly a step forward as it gives federal stakeholders greater authority and clearer responsibilities. However, it will take several years to determine the overall impact of GDA. For example, some believe that geospatial information management would have been better served if the FGDC had reported to Office of Management of Budget (OMB), as OMB has a larger role in the federal budget. Moreover, it is unclear whether increased Congressional oversight will cause geospatial information management to be caught up in Washington politics. 

Authors

Mr. Pomfret is a corporate partner at the Williams Mullen law firm and the founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Spatial Law and Policy. He counsels businesses and government agencies on the policy and legal issues that impact the collection, use, storage and distribution of data, such as licensing, privacy and data protection, data quality and liability and regulatory matters. Mr. Pomfret regularly speaks on around the globe on these issues and has presented to committees of the United Nations and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ingo Baumann is the column editor for GNSS & the Law, and the co-founder and partner of BHO Legal in Cologne, Germany, a boutique law firm for European high technology projects mainly in the space sector. Ingo studied law at the Universities of Muenster and Cologne. His doctoral thesis, written at the Institute for Air and Space Law in Cologne, examined the international and European law of satellite communications. Baumann worked several years for the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), including as head of the DLR Galileo Project Office and CEO of the DLR operating company for the German Galileo Control Center.  

The post Impact of Geospatial Data Act of 2018 in U.S. – Time Will Tell appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

Aound the globe, police make increasing use of GNSS tracking and other technologies for criminal investigations. National laws and court decisions are using different approaches and come to different solutions regarding the legality of such measures, in view of their implications on the rights of individuals and namely the protection of privacy. There are two different types of methods using GNSS tracking for criminal investigations. One type is obtaining positional information indirectly by requesting the telecommunication service providers to provide the positional information of a target’s device. The other type is obtaining positional information directly by using GPS terminals attached on a target’s belongings. 

In Japan, secrecy of communication is guaranteed by the Constitution. Furthermore, the Telecommunications Business Act provides that the communications being handled by the telecommunications service provider shall not be censored and the secrecy of such communications shall not be infringed. Therefore, the telecommunication service providers are prohibited from providing a contractor’s positional information for the police without the statutory basis. Therefore, when the former is conducted, the police must obtain an inspection permit. On the other hand, the latter has not been regulated in detail by a law, so the police had employed the latter method without any warrants. Under such circumstances, the legality of the latter method of GPS investigation became controversial. 

Similar situations are occurring worldwide. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled on similar matters. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Jones that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The case was subject to significant legal debate and diverging opinions among the Supreme Court´s judges. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court decided on the comparable matter of cellphone location data. In Carpenter v. United States, the Court held that the government violates the Fourth Amendment by accessing historical records containing the physical locations of cellphones without a search warrant.

Last year, Japan’s Supreme Court decided for the first time on the legality of the latter type of GPS investigation without warrants. Lower courts have made judgments about the matter preceding the Supreme Court decision and, like is the case in the U.S., caused controversies among lawyers. 

This article consists of three parts. The first Part (2) outlines the legal issues about GPS investigation under the Japanese legal system. The second part (3, 4, 5) summarizes and examines the decision by the Supreme Court and relevant lower court’s decisions. The final part (6) draws some comparison between the Japan’s Supreme Court’s decision and the mosaic theory which was referred in the previous U.S. decision.

Statutory and Case Law Framework

Before examining the details of the Supreme Court decision, we provide some background on the legal issues related to GPS investigations without warrants under the Japanese legal system. 

There are two basic provisions applicable to this matter. Firstly, Article 35 of the Constitution provides that “the right of all persons to be secure in their homes, papers and effects against entries, searches and seizures shall not be impaired except upon warrant issued for adequate cause and particularly describing the place to be searched and things to be seized.” Secondly, the proviso to paragraph (1) of Article 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code provides that “compulsory dispositions shall not be applied unless special provisions have been established in this Code.” Applying these articles to a disposition by public authority, if the disposition is relevant to “compulsory dispositions”, a warrant is generally needed to make the disposition. 

According to the established case law (Supreme Court 1975(A)No.146, March 16, 1976; Keishu Vol.30, No.2, at 187), “compulsory dispositions” are defined as “measures that are not permitted in the absence of special rules and provisions justifying such action, such as suppressing or subjecting the individual to unreasonable duress and placing restrictions on his person, residence, or property for the purpose of carrying out the coercive investigation.” This definition consists of two elements, namely, the suppressing or subjecting of the individual to unreasonable duress and the restrictions placed on important rights of the individual. Moreover, the Criminal Procedure Code and the Act on Wiretapping for Criminal Investigation specifies different types of warrants for each compulsory disposition: a search and seizure warrant, an inspection permit and wiretapping warrant are defined as warrants for compulsory dispositions (besides warrants for physical restraint of a person). Therefore, when a new type of compulsory disposition which is not provided in the Criminal Procedure Code emerges, it is needed to consider the nature of the compulsory disposition and determine which type of compulsory dispositions defined in laws covers the compulsory disposition to decide which type of warrant must be obtained. Otherwise the newly emerged compulsory disposition cannot be employed by the police.

Against the above framework of the Japanese law, including the case law, two issues are identified about the GPS investigation without warrants. The first issue is whether any warrant is needed for the GPS investigation or not (“Issue 1”). As for the GPS investigations, the second part of the definition of “compulsory disposition” by the Supreme Court, i.e. the placing of restrictions on important rights of the respective individual, is the main point of debates. If a warrant is necessary for GPS investigations, the next issue is which type of warrant is suitable for the GPS investigation (“Issue 2”). A few lower court’s and some academics argued that “inspection” could cover GPS investigations. The Supreme Court defined “inspection” as a “disposition recognizing and maintaining by utilization of the five senses to validate the existence, characteristics, states, and details of the objectives” (Supreme Court 1997(A)No.636, December 16, 1999; Keishu Vol.53, No.9, at 1327). Hence, if GPS investigation satisfies this definition, it may be conducted when, and only when, an inspection permit is issued.

Facts of the Case

The accused was indicted for committing a group robbery with others (also indicted, but not appealed to the Supreme Court). In this case, the police attached GPS terminals on 19 vehicles for a period of approximately six and a half months to track their locations and monitor their movements. The vehicles were not only used by the accused and his accomplices, but also by the accused’s female friend. The investigation was conducted without their consent and without a warrant.

The accused argued that GPS investigation without obtaining a warrant is illegal so that the court should reject the admissibility of the evidence obtained directly from GPS investigation as well as evidence closely related to such GPS investigation.

Lower Court’s Decisions   

The court of first instance (Osaka District Court 2014(Wa) No.5962, July 10, 2016; Keishu Vol.71, No3) concluded that GPS investigation constitutes a compulsory disposition so that such method of investigation needs a warrant. The court of first instance based its ruling on two main considerations. First, a subject’s information can be obtained through GPS investigation even when the subject is in an area where one has a reasonable expectation that its privacy is protected. Second, intruding into private estate to attach GPS terminals is infringement on the estate owner’s property right. The court concluded that GPS investigation places restrictions on one’s right of privacy and shall be one of compulsory dispositions.

As regards to the type of a warrant required, the court held GPS investigation needs an inspection permit. It considered that GPS investigation has the nature of inspection, in that investigators utilize their five senses to observe the positional information of the GPS terminal on a display screen of a receiver.

The court decided that the GPS investigation in this case was illegal in that it was conducted without obtaining an inspection permit.

In contrast, the court of prior instance (Osaka High Court 2015(U) No.966, March 2, 2016; Keishu Vol.71, No3) concluded that GPS investigation does not need a warrant. Although the court’s reasoning is not straightforward, it mentioned two factors which concluded the GPS investigation had not infringed on the suspect’s right to privacy significantly. First, the court held that the level of privacy infringement was not high, given that the information obtained by GPS investigation was limited to the locations of the vehicles to which GPS terminals were attached. However, the court did not elaborate on this point. Other lower court’s decisions on similar cases had stated that, as the location of a vehicle can in general be seen by many people, such information is not important enough to be protected. Commentaries about this decision also argue that the court may have considered the privacy was not seriously infringed through this investigation because the information obtained by such method is not important. Secondly, the police did not obtain information automatically and continuously for a long period of time. The actual method of obtaining information was that the police operated a GPS receiver manually each time to show the location information on the display screen. In other words, such information was not collected and accumulated automatically. This means, according to the court, that the police could not obtain information comprehensively through the GPS investigation conducted in this case. Based on these two elements, the court of prior instance concluded that the GPS investigation did not fall under the compulsory disposition that required a warrant. Thus, the court did not find the GPS investigation illegal.

Issue 2 did not become a problem because, according to this court’s decision, a warrant was not necessary for GPS investigation.

The views of the District Court and High Court about the legality of the GPS investigation were totally different. Therefore, it was all the more interesting how the Supreme Court decided on this issue. The next section describes the decision of the Supreme Court. 

Supreme Court’s Ruling (Supreme Court 2016(A) No.442, March 15, 2017; Keishu Vol. 71, No. 3)

The Supreme Court ruled the accused guilty from evidences other than evidences obtained through the GPS investigation. On the other hand, as obiter dictum, the Court mentioned the legality of the GPS investigation. 

The Court first considered the nature of the GPS investigation and held that it entails the invasion of the personal sphere by the public authority. GPS investigation which is conducted to retrieve and monitor current location information of the target vehicle makes it possible, by its nature, to monitor the location and movements of the target vehicle and its owner, not only when they are on public streets but also when they are in such places or their activities relate to such areas as require strong protection of personal privacy. Since such a method of investigation inevitably involves the continuous, comprehensive monitoring of the person’s activities, it can infringe upon the personal privacy. 

Furthermore, GPS investigation should be considered to entail the invasion of the private sphere by public authorities, in that it is conducted by secretly attaching devices that enable such infringement of privacy to personal property.

The Court then analyzed Article 35 of the Constitution and found that, the “right … to be secure in their homes, papers and effects against entries, searches and seizures” under the Article covers the right against the “invasion” into the private sphere that is equivalent to “homes, papers and effects”.

Based on this understanding, the Court held that GPS investigation is a disposition that is not permitted under the Criminal Procedure Code without special statutory grounds and, therefore, not permitted to be conducted without a warrant.

The Supreme Court then considered the possibility of conducting the GPS investigation by acquiring a warrant under the current Criminal Procedure Code but denied such a possibility. It concluded that there is no type of warrants under current Japanese laws suitable for GPS investigations and that, therefore, a new kind of warrant is needed for such investigations. 

According to the Court, while GPS investigation is similar to the “inspection” under Criminal Procedure Code in that it involves reading of the data from the information device on the screen, it is difficult to deny that GPS investigation also has a feature that cannot be covered by the “inspection.” The latter feature becomes apparent in that assuming that an inspection permit is required to conduct GPS investigation, the inspection permit specifies only the vehicle to which a GPS terminal should be attached and the charge, which is not sufficient to prevent excessive monitoring of the vehicle user’s activities that are irrelevant to the alleged facts, as GPS investigation inevitably involves the continuous, comprehensive monitoring of the target vehicle user’s activities. The Court further noted that while in the case of a warrant under the current Criminal Procedure Code the warrant must be shown to the person who is to undergo the measure to ensure due process in principle, such a step is unconceivable, given that the GPS investigation would be meaningless unless it is conducted without being known to the suspect.

Having such holding, the Supreme Court pointed out that the due process suitable for the GPS investigation be better determined by the legislation and not left to judicial interpretation of an existing statute, as the latter approach would end up in the judges’ discretion on a case-by-case basis and not be in line with the intention of the proviso to paragraph (1) of Article 197 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which provides, “compulsory dispositions shall not be applied unless special provisions have been established in this Code.”

In conclusion, the Supreme Court opined that it is desirable that a new law that will conform to the principles of the Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Code be enacted, reflecting the features of GPS investigation.

The Analysis of the Supreme Court Decision: Comparisons with the “Mosaic Theory”

In comparison with the U.S. decision, a similar issue happened regarding Issue 1. In the U.S., the issue is whether obtaining positional information through GPS investigation is an invasion of the right, which is “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”, protected under the Fourth Amendment of U.S. Constitution or not. If GPS investigation is an invasion of the right, the investigation is needed a warrant in general. This issue is similar to Issue 1 mentioned earlier.

As previously described, the reasoning of Japan’s Supreme Court decision is divided into two parts. The first part notes that “a method of investigation inevitably involves the continuous, comprehensive monitoring of the person’s activities”. The second part finds that “a method of investigation that invades a person’s private sphere by attaching devices that enable personal privacy invasion to the person’s property.”

Both of the reasons are referred in the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Jones (United States v. Jones, 132 S.Ct. 945 (2012)). The latter is same reason as majority opinion referred in Jones. On the other hand, the former seems to be similar to the “mosaic theory” referred by concurring and dissenting opinions in Jones. “Mosaic theory” means “continuous government collection of information about an individual could infringe on the person’s reasonable expectation of privacy.” Applying this theory on the matter of GPS investigation, obtaining positional information on public roads continuously and comprehensively through GPS investigation has the possibility to disclose one’s private affairs, like religious activities and political activities. 

The Japanese Supreme Court decision, in particular the second part of its reasoning, appears to be the same as the mosaic theory. However, some commentators doubt that it is. This is because the full acceptance of the mosaic theory could render illegal the traditional shadowing and stakeouts to collect positional information on public streets for a long term as disclosing one’s private affairs. Furthermore, it should be unclear to what extent of volume or term the positional information may be collected if the mosaic theory were to be adopted. Given these doubts about the mosaic theory, some commentators read the Japanese Supreme Court decision as not concerned about “the continuous, comprehensive monitoring of the person’s activities” as such, but based its decision on the fact that the positional information relating to “places and spaces where personal privacy should be strongly protected” could be involved in the process of collecting positional information continuously and comprehensively. 

Conclusion

The legality of GPS investigation is a common issue worldwide and national legal systems and courts have different views with regard to the nature and legality of GPS investigations. Discussions about the issue in U.S. and Europe have been introduced in Japan and affected the Japanese Supreme Court’s decision. However, the decision does not provide a comprehensive solution to the problem of GPS investigations since the judgment leaves much room for interpretations. This unclear conclusion is due to the fact that the nature of GPS investigations does not fit well in the existing framework of criminal procedure. 

There are various types of GPS investigations today and, regarding Issue 1, there are also many anticipations of decisions about each type of investigations that may come. Especially, as stated above, GPS investigations by using GPS functions with the target’s smartphone are often conducted for the tracking of the target. The Japanese Supreme Court has not ruled on such type of investigations. Also, the type of investigation is greatly different from the investigation conducted in this case, so the decision that may come cannot be directly based on the ruling in this case. Therefore, it is necessary to find essence of this ruling. On the other hand, there is a possibility that such unclear conclusion has some effect on the industry. When police conduct GPS investigations, they lease GPS terminals from a private company, like with this case. Therefore this investigation has some industrial relevance to GPS terminal manufacturers and leasing businesses. If police hesitate to conduct GPS investigation because of the decision, there is no denying that such industries are affected.

Moreover, in the near future, a new law for GPS investigation is going to be established in Japan and GPS investigation will be a promising method of investigation that will be commonly used. However, the legislative bill for GPS investigation hasn’t been settled until now. The law will need to keep the balance between the efficiency of GPS investigations and the protection of human rights. There still are various opinions about specific items of the law, and building a consensus on this may be quite a future task.

Currently, the Japanese judicial system is facing a big problem about GPS investigations.

Additional Resources

1. Horie, S., (2017): Memorandum of Supreme Court’s Decision about GPS Investigation, Quarterly Jurist, 2017, Summer/Number 22, 138-147

2. Inoue. M., (2017): No.30 GPS investigation, Extra Number Jurist No.222, 64-69

3. Ito, M., and T. Ishida (2017): Comments on Supreme Court Decisions; Jurist June 2017/Number 1507, 106-115

4. Pomfret, K., (2016). Implications of Evolving Expectations in the United States, Inside GNSS, September/October 2016, 46-49

5. Sasada, E., (2017). GPS Investigation and Article 35 of Constitution. Law Class, July 2017, Number 442, 123

6. Yamamoto, T., (2017): Aporia of the Decision about Illegal GPS Investigation?, Quarterly Jurist 2017 Summer/Number22, 148-155

Author and Column Editor

Maria Taniuchi is a legal apprentice in Japan and graduated from Kyoto University law school. She has experience studying in Taiwan at the National Cheng-chi University. She worked at a global law firm in Germany (Internship). 

Ingo Baumann is the column editor for GNSS & the Law, and the co-founder and partner of BHO Legal in Cologne, Germany, a boutique law firm for European high technology projects mainly in the space sector. Ingo studied law at the Universities of Muenster and Cologne. His doctoral thesis, written at the Institute for Air and Space Law in Cologne, examined the international and European law of satellite communications. Baumann worked several years for the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), including as head of the DLR Galileo Project Office and CEO of the DLR operating company for the German Galileo Control Center.  

The post GPS Investigations in Japan, and Privacy Concerns appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs. As such the ITU allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develops the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strives to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide. ITU is committed to connecting the entire world’s people – wherever they live and whatever their means. Through its work, ITU protects and supports everyone’s fundamental right to communicate.

The ITU Constitution (CS), Convention (CV) and the Radio Regulations (RR) contain the main principles and lay down the specific regulations governing the following major elements:

• frequency spectrum allocations to different categories of radiocommunication services;
• rights and obligations of Member administrations in obtaining access to the spectrum/orbit resources;
• international recognition of these rights by recording frequency assignments and, as appropriate, orbital information for a space station onboard a geostationary-satellite or for space station(s) onboard non-geostationary satellite(s), in the Master International Frequency Register (MIFR) or by their conformity, where appropriate, with a plan.

The ITU grants international recognition, a level of protection conditioned by the provisions of the RR and by procedures to detect and to eliminate Harmful Interference (HI) for registered assignments in the MIFR. The ITU also promotes the rational, efficient, economic, and equitable use of the radio frequency and orbital positions, which are limited natural resources and, as such, must be available for use by all Member States. In this regard, the ITU gives special consideration to the future use of these resources by developing countries.

The fact that the ITU CS and CV and the RR that complement them are intergovernmental treaties ratified by governments means that those governments undertake:

• to apply the provisions in their countries; and
• to adopt adequate national legislation that includes, as the basic minimum, the essential provisions of this international treaty.

RNSS Users
RNSS receivers are used today for a wide range of applications, including safety-of-life, critical navigation on land, at sea, and in the air (see Table 1, at the end of this article). According to GNSS Market Report 2017, available here, RNSS is used around the globe, with an estimated 5.8 billion RNSS devices in use in 2017. This number is expected to grow to 8 billion by 2020.

RNSS and definitions from the ITU RR
The following main definitions from the ITU RR apply to the RNSS:

• No. 1.43 radionavigation-satellite service (RNSS): A radiodetermination-satellite service used for the purpose of radionavigation
• No. 1.59 safety service: Any radiocommunication service used for the safeguarding of human life and property
• No. 4.10 Member States recognize that the safety aspects of radionavigation and other safety services require special measures to ensure their freedom from harmful interference; it is necessary therefore to take this factor into account in the assignment and use of frequencies.
• No 1.166 interference: The effect of unwanted energy due to one or a combination of emissions, radiations, or inductions upon reception in a radiocommunication system, manifested by any performance degradation, misinterpretation, or loss of information which could be extracted in the absence of such unwanted energy.
• No 1.167 permissible interference: Observed or predicted interference which complies with quantitative interference and sharing criteria contained in these Regulations or in ITU-R Recommendations or in special agreements as provided for in these Regulations.
• No 1.168 accepted interference: Interference at a higher level than that defined as permissible interference and which has been agreed upon between two or more administrations without prejudice to other administrations.
• No 1.169 harmful interference (HI): Interference which endangers the functioning of a radionavigation service or of other safety services or seriously degrades, obstructs, or repeatedly interrupts a radiocommunication service operating in accordance with Radio Regulations.

The ITU RR is recognizing a special status of radionavigation services and instructing the Member administrations to take all practicable and necessary steps to ensure that the operation of electrical apparatus or installations of any kind, including power and telecommunication distribution networks, does not cause harmful interference to a radiocommunication service and, in particular, to a radionavigation or any other safety service operating in accordance with the provisions of the RR.

The Radionavigation Satellite Service History
The Radionavigation Satellite Service (RNSS) is part of the global critical infrastructure and probably the most dynamic satellite service today, creating a big professional as well as public interest. It started in the 1980s with two military satellite systems: NAVSTAR GPS (USA) notified to the Bureau on 08.10.1979 and GLONASS (RUS) notified on 04.11.1982, in the bands 1559 to 1610 MHz (L1 band/signals) and 1215 to 1260 MHz (L2 band/ signals). Due to the military nature of the systems and because of the L1 band sharing with PRIMARY fixed terrestrial service within 44 administrations, global utilization of the RNSS for civil applications and by general public was very limited in the 1990s. For more info see here.

WRC-2000 — New RNSS Allocation and Extension of Old RNSS Allocation
In addition to the original RNSS systems operating in the 1559 to 1610 MHz and 1215 to 1260 MHz bands, several new systems were planned in the late 1990s. Based on studies, it was clear that the existing RNSS allocations were already extensively used, and would continue to undergo an extremely rapid expansion. As a result, all existing worldwide RNSS allocations should be retained for RNSS use. There was also a requirement for additional RNSS spectrum in the bands between 1 and 6 gigahertz to support worldwide satellite navigation developments in both the space-to-Earth and Earth-to-space directions of transmission. These additional RNSS allocations will enable GNSS operations with greatly improved performance characteristics (accuracy, availability and continuity). GNSS operations in widely spaced multiple frequency bands is necessary to support improved ionosphere corrections and phase tracking capabilities, which are essential for robust and precise navigation. An RNSS system using higher code rates to give better navigation accuracy and reduce multipath errors is required to satisfy the navigation requirements used in the future.

Based on the above requirements, the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) WRC-2000 in Istanbul, Turkey introduced new RNSS allocations and significant changes to the RNSS regulatory status. The WRC instructed the ITU-R to conduct urgent studies on RNSS sharing criteria with other services:

• Resolution 605 (WRC-2000) introduced a new RNSS band 1164-1215 MHz (L5 band/ signals) open for all new RNSS systems, but in the same time protecting the existing primary Aeronautical Navigation Service (ARNS) already allocated in this band;
• Resolution 606 (WRC-2000) extended the RNSS band for L2 band/signals up to 1300 MHz, but no additional constraints shall be placed on the RNSS systems and other services already operating in the band 1215 to 1260 MHz. In the same time, Resolution 607 (WRC-2000) instructed the ITU-R Study groups for urgent studies on compatibility between stations of the RNSS and the Radiolocation service (RL) operating in the frequency band 1240 to 1300 MHz;
• Resolution 603 (WRC-2000) introduced a new RNSS band 5000 to 5010 MHz (Earth-to-space). This resolution instructed the ITU-R Study groups for interference studies on compatibility between stations of the RNSS and the international standard system microwave landing system (MLS) operating in the band 5 030-5 150 MHz;
• Resolution 604 (WRC-2000) introduced a new RNSS band 5010 to 5030 MHz (C1 band/signals). This resolution instructed the ITU-R Study groups for urgent interference studies on compatibility between stations of the RNSS and the RAS in the frequency band 4990 to 5000 MHz;
• WRC-2000 also modified the footnote No. 5.362C to allocate the band 1559 to 1610 MHz band to the fixed service (FX) on a primary basis until 01.01.2005 [list of ADM] and until 01.01.2010 [list of ADM]. After these dates, the fixed service may continue to operate on a secondary basis until 01.01.2015, at which time this allocation shall no longer be valid. Administrations are urged to take all practicable steps to protect the RNSS and the ARNS and not authorize new frequency assignments to FX service systems in this band.

The WRC-2000 decisions had been very significant in relation to RNSS. Several new Advance Publication Information (API) for RNSS systems were submitted to the Bureau after WRC-2000: COMPAS (CHN), MSATNAV and LSATNAV (F/GLS), GLONASSM (RUS), NAVSTAR GPS L5 (USA), N-SAT-HEO (JPN) and INSAT-NAV (IND).

Current RNSS Regulation – ITU RR @2016
ITU-R study groups finished during the 2000-2003 period all studies as requested by the above-mentioned resolutions adopted by WRC-2000 with the following recommendations:

• For the band 1164 to 1215 MHz an aggregate protection criterion for ARNS incorporated into the RR was proposed with compliance to be assured by administrations. This method mandates the provision of aggregate interference protection to the ARNS at the level identified in ITU-R studies, regardless of the number of RNSS systems operating in the band. It commits enforcement of the requirement to those administrations that operate or intend to operate RNSS systems. This method would manage the total amount of interference caused by these systems through the collaborative agreement on the part of administrations proposing and operating the RNSS systems, and there would be no additional regulatory task for the Bureau to validate compliance with the protection criterion. There would be a need for coordination between RNSS administrations having GSO/non-GSO networks under Article 9 RR, and associated transitional measures, that would entail discussion between RNSS operators. This process would commence at an early point in the implementation of the system. There would also be a need for consultation among RNSS administrations under the provisions of the proposed new resolution and associated provisions in the RR to ensure that the aggregate protection criterion is met. Since RNSS operators should know sufficiently in advance the conditions under which their systems would operate, the consultations should be open to any administration having sent complete coordination or notification information to the Bureau. However, only “real” systems should be included in the calculations. A mechanism needs to be put into place to determine which systems are “real” for purposes of participating in the calculations.
• For the band 1215 to 1300 MHz, based on 12 years of operational experience by the GPS system in the frequency range 1215 to 1240 MHz and over 10 years of operational experience by the GLONASS system in the frequency range 1240 to 1260 MHz, RNSS signals have successfully demonstrated co-primary sharing between this RNSS system and radars in the band 1215 to 1260 MHz. Operational experience with current GPS and GLONASS system characteristics in the 1215 to 1260 MHz band has not led to any reports of harmful interference being caused to existing radar systems.
• For the band 5010 to 5030 MHz, due to the fact that unwanted emissions from space stations of the RNSS in the frequency band 5010 to 5030 MHz may cause interference to the radio astronomy service (RAS) operating in the nearby band 4990 to 5000 MHz, RNSS systems operating in such band shall comply with the pfd and aggregated epfd limits. In order not to cause harmful interference to the microwave landing system (MLS) operating above 5030 MHz, an aggregate pfd by all RNSS systems (space-to-Earth) shall apply.

Subsequently, the WRC-03 in Geneva, Switzerland finalized the new RNSS regulations in the bands 1164 to 1215 MHz, 1240 to 1300 MHz and 5010 to 5030 MHz, with the following results:

• RESOLUTION 608 (WRC-03) Use of the frequency band 1215 to 1300 MHz by systems of the radionavigation-satellite service (space-to-Earth)
• RESOLUTION 609 (WRC-03) Protection of aeronautical radionavigation service systems from the equivalent power fluxdensity produced by radionavigation satellite service networks and systems in the 1164 to 1215 MHz frequency band
• RESOLUTION 610 (WRC-03) Coordination and bilateral resolution of technical compatibility issues for radionavigation-satellite service networks and systems in the bands 1164 to 1300 MHz, 1559 to 1610 MHz and 5010 to 5030 MHz
• RESOLUTION 741 (WRC-03) Protection of the radio astronomy service in the band 4990 to 5000 MHz from unwanted emissions of the radionavigation-satellite service (space-to-Earth) operating in the frequency band 5010 to 5030 MHz
• RECOMMENDATION 608 (WRC-03) – Guidelines for consultation meetings established in Resolution 609 (WRC-03)

Results of WRC-03 decision guarantees long term sustainable development of new RNSS systems, protecting of existing RNSS systems and sharing criteria with other radiocommunication services operating in the same or adjacent bands. Several new RNSS systems and regional augmentation systems were recorded in the MIFR and declared bringing into use – MSATNAV (F/GLS) – 03.03.2006, COMPAS (CHN) – 26.03.2007, GLONASS-M (RUS) – 17.01.2009, NAVSTAR GPS-IIRF (USA) – 10.04.2009, N-SAT-HEO-2 (JPN) – 28.12.2007 and INSAT-NAV (IND) – 30.04.2012.

For the complete list see here.

WRC-12 Extension for the Radiodetermination-Satellite Service (RDSS)
The band 2483.5 to 2500 MHz is intended to facilitate navigation signals for existing RDSS systems in this band to be used globally and to support potential signals from new RDSS systems, which, because of this band’s proximity to mobile service allocations above 2.5 gigahertz, may offer attractive synergies with terrestrial mobile systems due to improved antenna efficiencies and use of shared hardware not possible with other RNSS bands.

Readers may find complete information about all RNSS allocations, including associated footnotes and Resolutions, in the ITU RR @ 2016 here.

The sharing of the band 1164 to 1215 MHz between ARNS and RNSS is managed in application of Resolution 609. For more info see – RES-609 Consultation Meeting.

The basic concepts of RES-609 are:

(a) All potential RNSS system operators and ADMs are given full visibility of the process
(b) No single RNSS system shall be permitted to use up the entire interference allowance
(c) ADMs operating or planning to operate RNSS systems will need to agree cooperatively to achieve the level of protection for ARNS
(d) ADMs participating in this process of epfd calculation should hold Consultation meetings on a regular basis
(e) Up to now, 14 RES-609 meetings were held, for more information see the RES-609 link above.
(f) Conclusion of the last 14th RES-609 Consultation meeting – The maximum aggregate epfd of satellites associated with the referenced RNSS networks and systems is determined to be no greater than –121.98 dB(W/(m²∙MHz)), i.e. 0.48 decibels below the Resolution 609 limit of –121.5 dB(W/(m²∙MHz)). It is noted that the result is based on the use of worst-case assumptions in terms of interference from RNSS into ARNS.

1215 – 1300 MHz band regulation
Use of the RNSS service in the band 1215 to 1300 MHz shall be subject to the condition that no harmful interference is caused to, and no protection is claimed from, the radionavigation service (RNS) authorized under No. 5.331 RR. Furthermore, the use of the radionavigation-satellite service in the band 1215 to 1300 MHz shall be subject to the condition that no harmful interference is caused to the radiolocation service. No. 5.43 RR shall not apply in respect of the radiolocation service (RLS). Resolution 608 (WRC-03) – no constraints in addition to the RNSS systems in the frequency band 1215 to 1260 MHz brought into use until June 2, 2000.

1559 – 1610 MHz band regulation
Co-Primary RNSS and ARNSS band: The use of this band is subject to the application of the provisions of Nos. 9.12, 9.12A and 9.13 RR. Resolution 610 shall also apply.

2483.5 – 2500 MHz band regulation
This is a co-primary allocation of FIXED (FX), MOBILE (MOB), MOBILE-SATELLITE (MS) and RADIODETERMINATION SATELLITE (RDSS) services. The use of the band 2483.5 to 2500 MHz by the MS and RDSS is subject to the coordination under No. 9.11A RR. Administrations are urged to take all practicable steps to prevent harmful interference to the RAS, especially those caused by second-harmonic radiation that would fall into the 4990 to 5000 MHz band allocated to the RAS worldwide. This band is also designated for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) applications. Radiocommunication services operating within these bands must accept harmful interference which may be caused by these applications. ISM equipment operating in these bands is subject to the provisions of No. 15.13 RR.

5000 – 5030 MHz band regulation
The band 5000 to 5010 MHz is used by the Galileo RNSS system for the operation of feeder-link stations transmitting navigation mission information to the satellites. Through feeder links, all system and navigation mission relevant information is transferred to the Galileo satellites comprising ephemerides, clock correction information, service integrity messages and all other data elements of the navigation message that require continuous updates. The feeder link is not intended for user access. Up to 20 uplink earth stations, using the RNSS (Earth-to-space) allocation in the 5000 to 5010 MHz frequency band are operated from geographical locations worldwide to enable access to each satellite in the constellation at any time.

In order not to cause harmful interference to the microwave landing system (MLS) operating above 5030 MHz, the aggregate pfd produced at the Earth’s surface in the frequency band 5030 to 5150 MHz by all the space stations within any RNSS systems operating in the frequency band 5010 to 5030 MHz shall not exceed −124.5 dB(W/m²) in a 150 kilohertz band. In order not to cause harmful interference to the RAS service in the frequency band 4990 to 5000 MHz, RNSS systems operating in the frequency band 5010 to 5030 MHz shall comply with the limits in the frequency band 4990 to 5000 MHz defined in Resolution 741.

List of ITU-R Recommendations Related to RNSS
The following represents a selection of the most important ITU-R recommendations related to RNSS.

• ITU-R M.1582 – Method for determining coordination distances, in the 5 GHz band, between the international standard microwave landing system stations operating in the aeronautical radionavigation service and stations of the radionavigation-satellite service
• ITU-R M.1583 – Interference calculations between non-geostationary mobile-satellite service or radionavigation-satellite service systems and radio astronomy telescope sites
• ITU-R M.1584 – Methodology for computation of separation distances between earth stations of the radionavigation-satellite service (Earth-to-space) and radars of the radiolocation service and the aeronautical radionavigation service in the frequency band 1300 to 1350 MHz
• ITU-R M.1787 – Description of systems and networks in the radionavigation-satellite service and technical characteristics of transmitting space stations operating in the bands 1164 to 1215 MHz, 1215 to 1300 MHz and 1559 to 1610 MHz
• ITU-R M.1831 – A coordination methodology for RNSS inter-system interference estimation
• ITU-R M.1901 – Guidance on ITU-R Recommendations related to systems and networks in the radionavigation-satellite service operating in the frequency bands 1164 to 1215 MHz, 1215 to 1300 MHz, 1559 to 1610 MHz, 5000 to 5010 MHz and 5010 to 5030 MHz
• ITU-R M.1902 – Characteristics and protection criteria for receiving earth stations in the radionavigation-satellite service (space-to-Earth) operating in the band 1215 to 1300 MHz
• ITU-R M.1903 – Characteristics and protection criteria for receiving earth stations in the radionavigation-satellite service (space-to-Earth) and receivers in the aeronautical radionavigation service operating in the band 1559 to 1610 MHz
• ITU-R M.1904 – Characteristics, performance requirements and protection criteria for receiving stations of the radionavigation-satellite service (space-to-space) operating in the frequency bands 1164 to 1215 MHz, 1215 to 1300 MHz and 1559 to 1610 MHz
• ITU-R M.1905 – Characteristics and protection criteria for receiving earth stations in the radionavigation-satellite service (space-to-Earth) operating in the band 1164 to 1215 MHz
• ITU-R M.1906 – Characteristics and protection criteria of receiving space stations and characteristics of transmitting earth stations in the radionavigation-satellite service (Earth-to-space) operating in the band 5000-5010 MHz
• ITU-R M.2030 – Evaluation method for pulsed interference from relevant radio sources other than in the radionavigation-satellite service to the radionavigation-satellite service systems and networks operating in the 1164 to 1215 MHz, 1215 to 1300 MHz and 1559 to 1610 MHz frequency bands
• ITU-R M.2031 – Characteristics and protection criteria of receiving earth stations and characteristics of transmitting space stations in the radionavigation-satellite service (space-to-Earth) operating in the band 5010-5030 MHz
• ITU-R M.2082 – Methodology and technical example to assist coordination of the mobile-satellite service and the radiodetermination-satellite service with the fixed service based on the power flux-density coordination trigger levels in the 2483.5 to 2500 MHz band

For the purpose of providing protection criteria for RNSS systems, RNSS receiver types for particular applications were described in the above referenced M-Series Recommendations. Recommendation ITU-R M.1787 provides descriptions of systems and networks in the RNSS and technical characteristics of transmitting space stations operating in the bands 1164 to 1215 MHz, 1215 to 1300 MHz and 1559 to 1610 MHz. Recommendations ITU-R M.1905, ITU-R M.1902, ITU-R M.1903 and ITU-R M.1904 provide technical and operational characteristics of, and protection criteria for, receiving stations in the RNSS systems operating in the RNSS bands.

Conclusion
Since WRC-2000, the regulatory framework related to RNSS has been constantly adapted to changing circumstances with the dramatic development in satellite-based global navigation services. Introduction of new frequency bands and modifications of the ITU RR and related procedures guarantee a sustainable development of this critical global infrastructure.

The recent review of the ITU MIFR shows that all global RNSS systems are successfully registered and brought into use following the procedure for notification and recording of space network frequency assignments in the MIFR as described in Article 11 of the Radio Regulations. The MIFR represents one of the pillars of the international radio regulatory regime as it contains all frequency usage notified to ITU. It should be consulted before selecting a frequency for any new user. For these reasons, notification of frequency assignments to the Bureau, with a view to their recording in the MIFR, represents an important obligation for administrations, especially in respect to those frequency assignments that have international implications.

The benefits and importance of RNSS should be recognized as a service used in many applications, including critical infrastructure, and in this respect all efforts should be undertaken to minimize interference (including jamming and spoofing) into RNSS that may affect physical and cyber security of personal life and society and to keep such occurrences and their impact to a controlled minimum. This can be achieved through a series of actions relating inter-alia to the following:

• Compliance with the ITU Constitution and Radio Regulations;
• Exchange of information and cooperation between administrations, satellite operators, service and content providers, industry, organizations and associations involved in satellite communications;
• Utilization of ITU Recommendations, standards, procedures;
• Participation in trainings;
• Utilization of new technologies, including use of the international monitoring system;

ITU has been playing the role listed above, and will continue to do so, by providing the required assistance to its members in order to ensure and maintain the interference-free operation of space services, a challenging strategic goal under the Radiocommunication Bureau’s core responsibilities.

ITU holds the firm conviction that only the continuous synergistic implementation of the above actions by all sectors involved in satellite radiocommunication can guarantee that harmful interference is kept to a minimum for the satellite community and end users.

Additional Resources
[1] CPM Reports and Final Acts WRC
[2] ITU Radio Regulations, Edition of 2016
[3] ITU-R Recommendations – M. series
[4] ITU-R Space Services Department (SSD)
[5] RES-609 Consultation meeting
[6] Space Network List (SNL) online
[7] Working Party 4C – Efficient orbit/spectrum utilization for the mobile-satellite service and the radiodetermination-satellite service

TABLE 1: Examples of RNSS users
AGRICULTURE and FORESTRY

• Forest area and timber estimates.
• Identifying species habitats.
• Fire perimeters.
• Water resources.
• Locating property boundaries.
• Ploughing, planting and fertilizing without operators.

AVIATION

• Oceanic and en route navigation.
• Non-precision and precision all-weather approaches.
• Direct routing of aircraft for fuel savings.
• Improved aircraft separation standards for more efficient air traffic management.
• Airport surface traffic management.
• Monitor wing deflections in flight.
• Wind shear detection.
• Precise airfield and landing aid locations.
• Seamless (global) air space management.
• Less expensive avionics equipment.
• Monitoring aircraft locations in flight.
• Precision departures.
• Missed approach applications.
• Enhanced ground proximity warning system.
• Automatic dependent surveillance.

ELECTRIC POWER

• Synchronization of power levels.
• Event location.

EMERGENCY RESPONSE

• Ambulance, police, and fire department dispatch.
• Road service locating disabled vehicles.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

• Hazardous waste site investigation.
• Ground mapping of ecosystems.
• Oil spill tracking and cleanup.
• Precise location of stored hazardous materials.

HIGHWAY and CONSTRUCTION

• Intelligent vehicle-highway system operation.
• Highway facility inventory and maintenance.
• Accident location studies.
• Highway construction.
• Navigation for motor vehicle drivers.
• Truck fleet on-the-road management.
• Monitoring status of bridges.

LAW ENFORCEMENT and LEGAL SERVICES

• Tracking and recovering stolen vehicles.
• Tracking narcotics and contraband movements.
• Maintaining security of high government officials and dignitaries while travelling.
• Border surveillance.
• Measuring and recording property boundaries.
• Tort claim evidence in aviation and maritime accidents.

MARITIME and WATERWAYS

• Navigation on the high seas.
• Search and rescue.
• All weather harbour approach navigation.
• Vessel traffic services.
• Dredging of harbours and waterways.
• Positioning of buoys and marine navigation aids.
• Navigation for recreational vessels.
• Location of commercial fishing traps and gear.
• Offshore drilling research.
• Monitoring deflections in dams as a result of hydrostatic and thermal stress changes.
• Ice breaking and monitoring icebergs and flows.
• Observing tides and currents.
• Harbour facility management.
• Location of containers in marine terminals.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

• Bus fleet on-the-road management.
• Passenger and operator security monitoring.

RAILROAD

• Railroad fleet monitoring.
• Train control and collision avoidance.
• Facility inventory control and management.

RECREATION

• Hiking and mountain climbing.
• Measuring at sports events.
• Setting lines on sports fields.

SURVEYING

• Electronic bench marker providing
• absolute reference of latitude, longitude and altitude.
• High precision surveys in minutes by anyone.
• Real-time dam deformation monitoring.
• Hydrographic surveying.
• Efficient and accurate photo surveys.
• Measuring areas without triangulation.
• Oil and mineral prospecting.
• National spatial data infrastructure.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

• Precise timing for interlacing messages/network synchronization.

WEATHER, SCIENTIFIC and SPACE

• Use as weather balloon position radiosonde.
• Measurement of sea level from satellites.
• Navigating and controlling space shuttles.
• Placing satellites into orbit.
• Monitoring earthquakes and tectonic plates.
• Measuring ground subsidence (sinking).
• Measuring atmospheric humidity from ground.
• Precise global mapping of ionosphere.

The post RNSS and the ITU Radio Regulations appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

The maritime sector drives the global economy, with ships transporting more than 80% of world trade. Ships and ports have come to rely on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) for a huge array of applications relating to position, velocity and precise universal and local time.

It is perhaps not surprising that the fallout from GNSS failure in the maritime sector over a five day-period could cost GBP£1.1billion in lost gross value added (GVA) in the United Kingdom alone (or about 1.4 billion USD) – according to a recent study by London Economics, commissioned by Innovate UK, the UK Space Agency and the Royal Institute of Navigation. [For more on this study, see Brussels View in the July/August 2017 issue of Inside GNSS.]

The threat of GNSS disruption to ships themselves is a real one. GPS interference in the Black Sea was reported earlier this year, affecting as many as 20 ships. And the United States Coast Guard warned that a sudden loss of GPS signal had occurred on multiple outbound vessels from a non-US port in 2015. Loss of GPS input to the ship’s surface search radar, gyro units and Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS), resulted in a lack of GPS data for position fixing, radar over ground speed inputs, gyro speed input and loss of collision avoidance capabilities on the ECDIS radar display.

However, ships do not rely on just GNSS alone for position fixing. A shipmaster can also deploy radar, or cross bearings using compass; terrestrial radio navigation; even sextants. This allows ships to mitigate the impact of GPS disruption.

Regulations in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) require merchant ships to carry a receiver for a GNSS or a terrestrial radionavigation system, or other means, suitable for use at all times throughout the intended voyage to establish and update the ship’s position by automatic means. But they must also carry a compass, a device to take bearings, and backup arrangements for ECDIS.

The organization which oversees SOLAS and has the remit for adopting carriage requirements, operational requirements and performance standards for world shipping is the International Maritime Organization (IMO). IMO (originally known as the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization, or IMCO) is the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for developing the regulations for ship safety and maritime security, and the prevention of pollution from ships.

IMO does not operate GNSS systems, but has an important role in accepting and recognizing worldwide radionavigation systems which can be used by international shipping.

When IMO began its work as the international regulatory body for shipping in 1959, one of its first tasks was to adopt a revised SOLAS treaty, to update the 1948 SOLAS treaty. (The very first SOLAS treaty was adopted in 1914, in the wake of the Titanic disaster, while another version was adopted in 1929.)

When the 1960 SOLAS was adopted by IMO, terrestrial radio navigation systems – including Decca Navigator and Loran A – were already in operation. In these systems, a ship’s radio receiver would measure transmissions from groups of radio transmitters sending signals simultaneously or in a controlled sequence. By measuring the phase difference between one pair of transmissions a line of position can be established. A second measurement, from another pair of stations, gives a second line and the intersection of the two lines gives the ship’s position.

In its chapter V on Safety of Navigation, SOLAS 1960 included a requirement for ships over 1,600 gross tonnage on international voyages to be fitted with radio direction-finding apparatus – a requirement dating back to the 1948 SOLAS Convention. The apparatus was required to comply with system requirements set out in SOLAS chapter IV on Radiotelegraphy and Radiotelephony (SOLAS Chapter IV is now called Radiocommunications).

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, Loran C and Differential Omega radio navigation systems were also becoming operational in major areas of the world’s oceans and they were combined with early computer technology to provide electronic printouts of the ship’s position. The then-Soviet Union’s Chayka system also became operational.

During this time, IMO Member States increasingly recognized the importance of using navigation systems in maritime safety and preventing marine pollution, for example as an aid to avoiding hazards. In 1968, IMO recommended that ships carrying oil or other noxious or hazardous cargoes in bulk should carry “an efficient electronic position-fixing device” (Assembly resolution A.156(ES.IV) Recommendation on the Carriage of Electronic Position-Fixing Equipment).

IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee was also noticing the potential for accurate position finding which satellites could provide. As with other developments in technology with shipping applications, IMO’s concern was to ensure that the user would benefit from the new technology and that such new systems would at least meet agreed performance standards.

A recommendation on accuracy standards for navigation, adopted by the IMO Assembly in 1983 (resolution A.529(13)), provided “guidance to Administrations on the standards of navigation accuracy for assessing position-fixing systems, in particular radionavigation systems, including satellite systems”. Outside harbour entrances and approaches, the order of accuracy was set at “4% of distance from danger with a maximum of 4 nautical miles”.

This was a fairly moderate requirement compared to today’s systems.

The Maritime Safety Committee had, in the meantime, begun to consider whether ships should be required – on a mandatory basis – to carry means of receiving transmissions from a suitable radio navigation system throughout their intended voyage.

A study was initiated to look at the operational requirements (including the need for reliability and low user cost) and how such systems could be recognized or accepted by IMO.

The Report on the study of a World-Wide Radionavigation System was adopted by the IMO Assembly in 1989 (resolution A.666(16)). It gave a detailed summary of the different terrestrial-based radio navigation systems then in operation (Differential Omega, Loran-C, Chayka), and also the satellite systems in development. These were the Global Positioning System (GPS) (United States) and GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) (then Soviet Union – now under the Russian Federation). It was agreed that IMO would develop performance standards for GPS and GLONASS receivers.

The study concluded that it was not feasible for IMO to fund a worldwide radio navigation system. However, IMO’s role would be to review radionavigation systems against set criteria, before they could be accepted. A radionavigation system adopted by IMO should be reliable, of low user cost, meet general navigation needs, provide accuracy not less than the standards adopted in 1983, and have 99.9% availability.

The study also recommended that changes to carriage requirements should not be considered until world-wide coverage had been achieved by a radionavigation satellite system.

In 1995, an updated study was adopted as the IMO policy for the recognition and acceptance of suitable radionavigation systems intended for international use in the world-wide radio navigation system (resolution A.815(19)). This study additionally recognized the need for provision of position information to support the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), by locating vessels in distress. The needs of high speed craft, such as fast ferries, were recognized and the study noted that ships operating at speeds above 30 knots may need more stringent accuracy requirements.

Performance standards for shipborne GPS receiver equipment were also adopted in 1995, and for GLONASS receivers in 1996. GPS became fully operational in 1995 and GLONASS in 1996. Both systems were recognized by IMO as components of the world-wide radionavigation system in 1996.

Meeting Maritime User Needs
IMO Member States acknowledged that there was a need to look ahead, to ensure that any future GNSS would meet maritime user needs. “Maritime Requirements for a Future Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)” were developed and adopted by the IMO Assembly in 1997 (resolution A.860(20)). This emphasized the need for IMO to play a continued role in monitoring the developments and ensuring that any future GNSS meets IMO requirements, including those for navigational accuracy, integrity of the service, availability, reliability and coverage.

In 2000, with both GPS and GLONASS systems now fully functional and providing the required degree of reliability, IMO moved forward with adopting mandatory carriage requirements for GNSS.

A revised SOLAS chapter V (Safety of Navigation), which entered into force in 2002, requires ships to carry a GNSS or terrestrial radionavigation receiver, to establish and update the ship’s position by automatic means, for use at all times throughout the voyage.

IMO also adopted MSC resolutions on updated performance standards for Shipborne Global Positioning System (GPS) Receiver Equipment (MSC.112(73)), for GLONASS Receiver Equipment (MSC.113(73)), for Shipborne DGPS and DGLONASS Maritime Radio Beacon Receiver Equipment (MSC.114(73)) and for shipborne combined GPS/GLONASS receiver equipment (MSC.115(73)).

Reflecting the increased positional accuracy provided by GPS and GLONASS, an updated resolution giving the IMO policy for the recognition and acceptance of suitable radio navigation systems intended for international use was adopted in 2003 by the IMO Assembly (resolution A.953(23)).

This resolution made the accuracy standards required more stringent (revoking those agreed in 1983): in harbour entrances, harbour approaches and coastal waters, positional information error should not be greater than 10 meters with a probability of 95%. In ocean waters, the system should provide positional information with an error not greater than 100 meters with a probability of 95%.

In 2011, IMO further updated the IMO policy for recognizing and accepting suitable radionavigation systems intended for international use (resolution A.1046(27)), inviting Governments to keep IMO informed of the operational development of any suitable radionavigation systems which might be considered for use by ships worldwide.

The resolution also specifically requested the Maritime Safety Committee to recognize systems conforming to IMO requirements. Such recognition would mean IMO recognizes that the system is capable of providing adequate position information within its coverage area and that the carriage of receiving equipment for use with the system satisfies the relevant requirements of the SOLAS Convention.

New GNSS Providers Recognized
The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), proposed by the People’s Republic of China, was developed in the 2000s and IMO was requested to develop performance standards for BDS receivers. The performance standards were adopted in 2014 (resolution MSC.379(93)).

BDS was recognized as a component of the world-wide radio navigation system in 2014. Full operational capability for BeiDou is anticipated to be reached by 2020. The IMO recognition (SN.1/Circ.329) notes that the static and dynamic accuracy of the system is 100 meters (95%) and it is therefore not suitable for navigation in harbour entrances and approaches, and other waters in which freedom to maneuver is limited.

The European Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System was developed and presented to IMO as a future component of the GNSS in the early 2000s. Performance standards for Galileo shipborne receivers were adopted by IMO in 2006 (resolution MSC.233(82)). The MSC recognized Galileo in 2016 (SN.1/Circ.334), noting that, in future, the static and dynamic accuracy of the Galileo system is expected to be better than 10 meters with a probability of 95%, with integrity provided by Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) techniques. Once full operational capability is met, it will be suitable for navigation in harbour entrances, harbour approaches and coastal waters. Full operational capability for Galileo is also anticipated to be reached by 2020.

A further system, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) — now also known in India as NaVIC (Navigation Indian Constellation) — is now being considered by IMO. Performance standards for IRNSS receiver equipment will be developed by 2019, and its possible recognition as part of the world-wide radio navigation system will be assessed.

Multi-System Shipborne Radio Navigation Receiver Equipment
Meanwhile, in June 2015, the Maritime Safety Committee adopted performance standards for multi-system shipborne radionavigation receiver equipment to ensure that ships are provided with resilient position-fixing equipment suitable for use with available radionavigation systems throughout their voyage (resolution MSC.401(95), updated by MSC.432(98)).

Such equipment can allow the combined use of current and future radionavigation as well as augmentation systems for the provision of position, velocity and time data within the maritime navigation system.

The World-Wide RadioNavigation System for the Future
As technology continues to develop, the world-wide radionavigation system can also be seen in the context of the wider IMO strategy for e-navigation, approved in 2008, which is intended to meet present and future user needs through harmonization of marine navigation systems and supporting shore services.

A key element in the e-navigation strategy relates to position fixing systems, which will need to meet user needs in terms of accuracy, integrity, reliability and system redundancy in accordance with the level of risk and volume of traffic.

A detailed e-navigation Strategy Implementation Plan (SIP), approved in 2014, sets out a framework and a road map of tasks that would need to be implemented or conducted in the future to give effect to five prioritized e-navigation solutions, one of which is the improved reliability, resilience and integrity of bridge equipment and navigation information, and another being the integration and presentation of available information in graphical displays received via communication equipment.

IMO will continue to oversee the world-wide radionavigation system and to have a role in recognizing systems that may be developed in the future. IMO also has a role to ensure the reliability, integrity and resilience of such systems.

The development of satellite-based position systems — GNSS — has enabled a leap forward in the accuracy standards required of such systems and has no doubt contributed to improved safety, efficiency and environmental protection at sea.

This has implications for both carriage requirements for navigational equipment as well as for the human element, in terms of training requirements.

IMO will continue to provide the forum for careful consideration of any requirements, in order to maintain carriage requirements recognizing the significant value and use of GNSS, but also to ensure that alternative systems continue to be mandated, for more resiliency and redundancy.

IMO
The International Maritime Organization – is the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships.

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Airspace is subject to the territorial sovereignty of the respective underlying state, and that state can therefore exercise a level of discretion in prohibiting or conditioning activities in that area which is only limited by international obligations resting upon that state – for instance, following certain international aviation treaties. The only exception here concerns airspaces over international waters, for which the 1944 Chicago Convention provides a general solution regarding the regulation of aviation for safety purposes. In general, as a consequence the use of GNSS and their services in the context of aviation is dealt with by air law, national as well as international, as a body of law principally regulating activities in airspaces, national as well as international.

Outer space, by contrast, is defined as an area not subject as such to any territorial or quasi-territorial sovereignty, a virtual “global commons”, where the freedom of use and exploration is the baseline legal principle and such freedom can only be curtailed, at the international level, by applicable international (space) law. This principle has been codified in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to which all important spacefaring nations are party. The Outer Space Treaty at the same time provides for a first embryonic set of international obligations resting upon states which limit the baseline freedom of use and exploration, while several other space treaties as well as customary international law and more general treaties which impact outer space and space activities provide for further limitations. This is what is commonly labeled “space law”, a body of (in first instance international) rules addressing such space activities. Only at a secondary level, national law or (in the case of the European Union) EU law plays a role, partly in implementing and applying the international regime in a national respectively EU context.

When analyzing to what extent space law has an impact on GNSS, furthermore, we should realize that GNSS from an overarching legal perspective comprises five main elements: (1) ground stations controlling by way of (2) radio signals (3) the satellites launched into and then operating in outer space, emitting (4) the position, navigation and timing (PNT) signals allowing (5) relevant receivers to calculate positioning and navigation information. 

Elements (1) and (5) are not generally considered to be a subject which space law should regulate, as they fall completely within the sovereign jurisdiction of whatever state the ground stations respectively receivers find itself in. For the sake of simplicity, any receiver infrastructure in outer space is not further discussed in the contribution, whereas any similar receiver infrastructure in airspace is subsumed within the concept of receivers as it is legally subject to the same territorial jurisdiction (as further regulated internationally by air law).

Elements (2) and (4), which at least in part traverse outer space on their way to respectively back from the satellites, are effectively dealt with already by an international body of law dealing with all communications, not with space communications only; hence these will not be dealt with in any detail here.

For completeness’s sake, suffice it here to point to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) which, in a legal sense, operates on the basis of the ITU Constitution, the ITU Convention, and whatever is the most recent version of the Radio Regulations, listed in Additional Resources near the end of this article. Once it had become clear that satellites could be integrated in the international infrastructure for communications in the late 1950s, it was agreed that the ITU presented the obvious forum to address these issues as it had since decades already addressed the issue of potential interference on the international level, by developing and implementing an elaborate system of coordination of frequency use. The ITU’s legal involvement with satellites, including GNSS, remains limited however to such coordination of frequencies and attendant orbits.

That leaves most prominently element (3) to be subject to space law. Following primarily from the aforementioned Outer Space Treaty and two of its successor treaties, the 1972 Liability Convention and the 1975 Registration Convention (See Additional Resources), the following fundamental legal rules and obligations would then arise which are of particular importance for GNSS.

Freedom of Use and Exploration for the Benefit of All Mankind
This principle notably emanates from Articles I and II of the Outer Space Treaty, and would generally include the use of satellites for positioning, timing and navigation purposes. The limits to this freedom under the Outer Space Treaty are fairly limited, and remain essentially confined to an obligation to comply with general international law as applicable (Article III, Outer Space Treaty, which specifically references the UN Charter), to undertake reasonable efforts to avoid harmful interference with other legitimate space activities (Article IX, Outer Space Treaty) and to share any relevant scientific information gathered in the context of operations with the world community (Article XI, Outer Space Treaty).

Conversely, it will be clear that GNSS actually contributes – at least in principle – to the benefits of space activities for all mankind, since it allows many activities on earth or in the airspaces above it to take place safer, quicker and more efficiently. This would apply in particular, of course, to the extent the GNSS signals would be openly and freely available – which currently is the case with GPS and GLONASS Standard Positioning Signals, whereas also BeiDou and Galileo plan to offer such openly and freely accessible signals. The only exceptions would be where GNSS would be used, for instance, for supporting the unlawful use of force, so as to violate Article III of the Outer Space Treaty. This would mainly refer to the use of force other than in the exercise of the right of self-defense (Article 51, UN Charter) or following a mandate of the UN Security Council (Article 42, UN Charter).

Responsibility of States for National Activities in Outer Space
This responsibility also pertains to the operation of GNSS satellites. If such satellites are involved in activities violating the rights of other states (such as referenced above), it will be the state or states as whose “national activities” these operations qualify, which will be held responsible under international law (Article VI, Outer Space Treaty). Such violations would then give rise to a requirement for the violating state(s) to remedy the situation and as appropriate apologize, punish responsible operators and/or provide assurances that such violations will not occur again. This is independent from the occurrence of actual damage, which may in addition give rise to obligations to compensate for such damage, even beyond the particular concept of liability dealt with below. Thus, the United States would be responsible for GPS operations, the Russian Federation for GLONASS operations, and the People’s Republic of China for BeiDou operations.

Since such state responsibility also pertains to satellite operations conducted by private operators, any future private operator of Galileo pursuant to a concession would also give rise to the responsibility of the state(s) as whose “national activities in outer space” such operations would qualify. The idea of having Galileo operated under a concession, as originally intended by the European Commission, turned out to be premature, but it cannot and is not excluded that in the future this may change.

While the EU is in the political and financial lead when it comes to Galileo, and the European Space Agency (ESA) has been the initial developer in a technical and operational sense, pursuant to Articles VI and XIII of the Outer Space Treaty such international responsibility ultimately rests with the member states, or at least with the member states which are involved specifically in the Galileo programs. To what extent the seat of the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the hosting of ground stations for the purpose of Galileo, or relative investments into Galileo might cause for specific responsibility of specific member states is an issue for internal considerations; any third state complaining about any perceived illegality of Galileo operations would in principle have the choice to address any such complaints against any of the EU and ESA member states.

Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty furthermore requires the “appropriate State” to ensure “authorization and continuing supervision” of non-governmental entities. As long as Galileo operations would remain the domain of the GSA, as an agency of the European Commission, Articles VI and XIII would allow the European Union to effectively exercise such control over Galileo operations. As soon as, however, a private concessionaire were to take over as operator, one or the other EU/ESA member state would have to step into the breach to ensure the aforementioned “authorization and continuing supervision”, even if in practice the EU/GSA could still be used as the “tool” to achieve that aim.

Liability of States for Physical Damage Caused by Space Objects
Pursuant to this principle, although following a different scheme of attribution based on fundamental involvement with the launch of the space objects concerned (namely that of the so-called “launching State” of the space object at issue; Article VII, Outer Space Treaty; Articles I, II & III, Liability Convention), states are not only responsible but also liable for physical damage caused by space objects. Such damage would then give rise to an obligation to compensate for the damage, which is fault-based only to the extent that damage is caused to other space objects (Articles II & III, Liability Convention) and is in principle without limit (Article XII).

In other words, if a GPS satellite would crash into another space object, the United States would be held liable for the damage caused thereby to the extent the crash would be considered its fault; if the damage by contrast would take place on earth or to aircraft in flight, the United States would be held liable without further ado. The same obviously would apply for the Russian Federation with respect to GLONASS and the People’s Republic of China with respect to BeiDou. 

It is important to note here, that damage is defined, following the general interpretation of the Liability Convention, as direct damage caused by physical impact, meaning that non-physical damage such as radio interference or indirect damage – an aircraft crashing as a consequence of erroneous GNSS information; loss of revenues due to interference – are not compensable. In the context of discussions within the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), for instance, the United States has consistently denied any liability for damage which users of GPS signals or services could suffer due to their trust in those signals or services being unwarranted. Only exceptionally it has been claimed by authors that liability for signals and services emanating from GNSS satellites could be equated to “damage caused by the satellites”, and hence be subject to liability claims pursuant to the Liability Convention. In the US case, it has only been admitted that under particular circumstances liability claims against the US government could be entertained in US courts, to the extent that the Federal Tort Claims Act or Suits in Admiralty Acts might be invoked.

Victims of such types of damages should therefore seek compensation either under the heading of state responsibility as addressed above or in a private capacity in a relevant national court.

Again, international liability also applies for privately-owned and/or -operated GNSS systems; a possible future private concessionaire operating Galileo would thus only be held liable to the extent the states themselves liable would derogate such liability under the concession. While the Liability Convention in this respect offers intergovernmental organizations the opportunity to qualify as a state party to the Convention for practical purposes (Article XXII, Liability Convention), ESA has so far complied with the relevant conditions but not the EU. Even to the extent ESA would be held liable for damage caused by Galileo (due to its initial involvement in system launch and deployment), ultimately the burden of compensation would come to rest upon the ESA member states.

As for the EU, due to absence of its qualification pursuant to Article XXII of the Liability Convention as a de facto party to its regime, legally speaking it is an “invisible” entity. Asserting a claim for damage caused by Galileo and otherwise falling within the scope of the Liability Convention against the EU or the EC consequently would not be legally possible – instead, if the victim state(s) would not favor addressing ESA as per the aforementioned option, the only option left would be to address individual EU member states who could all, legally-technically speaking, be argued to be procuring states (Article I(c)(i), Liability Convention) of the Galileo satellite in question and hence liable.

At the same time, it should be noted that in the Galileo context a substantial element of the proposed package of paid services (as opposed to the open GPS services for which no liability could unequivocally be claimed) would be the inclusion of liability acceptance on the part of the operator. To the extent this approach were to become accepted, users who would rely on Galileo services which would then turn out to be erroneous (hence such reliance would in hindsight be unjustified) and as a consequence cause damage to third parties, would be able to derogate the relevant third-party claims to the Galileo operator. An example on point would be an aircraft crashing as a consequence of malfunctioning of a Galileo service: the derogation of liability would allow the airline to shift the burden of any third-party liability claim under applicable air law treaties ultimately to the Galileo operator.

Registration of Space Objects by States Involved in their Launching
Closely related to the international regime on liability summarized above, states are also required to register – at least in principle – the space objects for which they qualified as “launching State(s)”. This registration obligation is actually twofold. On the one hand, states need to register such space objects in a national register, the details of which are further left to the state of registry (Article II(1), Registration Convention). On the other hand, they are required to provide the United Nations with a specific set of data for the purpose of inclusion in the international register (Articles III, IV, Registration Convention).

Unfortunately, the latter obligation is qualified as “as soon as practicable” (Article IV(1), Registration Convention); coupled with the principled absence of an international monitoring organization, effectively this means that many satellites do not get registered at all (in particular if military in nature).

A further problem concerns the impossibility – at least formally, as per the Registration Convention, to “unregister” or “deregister” satellites. The assumption had simply been that satellites, once launched, would be owned and operated by their principal owner until their end-of-life, so the possibility of change of ownership in-orbit was never seriously contemplated.

Since the possibility of more than one state qualifying as a launching state is real, in view of the four alternative criteria for that, in relevant cases those states should determine which one of them is to fulfill the functions pursuant to the Registration Convention – double registration is legally speaking not possible (Article II(2), Registration Convention).

Clearly, following the above, the United States, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China are required to register the satellites composing their respective GNSS. A final point of note concerns the fact that, while GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou are obviously multi-satellite systems, pursuant to the Registration Convention each individual launch carrying one or more satellites is registered individually – the main concern driving the registration regime was the launch phase as deemed the by far most risky and accident-prone. 

As for Europe, though similarly to the Liability Convention under the Registration Convention the possibility is open for an intergovernmental organization to become a “party” to the Convention for all practical purposes exists (Article VII, Registration Convention), again only ESA, not the EU has qualified as such. Any EU “register” of Galileo satellites, if ever contemplated, would not have any legal meaning pursuant to the Registration Convention; (Note that in an effort to provide as much relevant identification-related information to the general public, the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs will include any such information provided by the European Union in the international register between brackets, to distinguish it from information provided formally in accordance with the Registration Convention.) The absence moreover of a possibility to register such satellites in two or more states at the same time (Article II(2), registration Convention) also principally excludes such a register under the Convention. Galileo satellites, consequently, could be registered either by ESA or by any EU member state qualifying as the launching State. 

At least to the extent Galileo satellites are launched from Kourou on Ariane launchers, France would be the logical launching state, as the use of its territory and launch facilities for the launch would most unequivocally qualify it as a launching state – much more so than, for instance, Germany or Italy where the main control centers are hosted. In practice, as it turns out, ESA registered the GIOVE satellites in 2005 and 2008; the Galileo IOV and Galileo satellites launched from 2011 onwards, however, were not officially registered with the United Nations, also raising legal questions regarding jurisdiction and control at least under international law (Article VIII, Outer Space Treaty). For more details on this, see Additional Resources.

Mitigation of Space Debris
The issue of space debris is not yet formally dealt with by the space treaties in any relevant detail: the provision coming closest to addressing the issue concerns that which requires a state which “has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by it or its nationals in outer space (…) would cause potentially harmful interference with activities of other States Parties in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies” to “undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding with any such activity or experiment” (Article IX, Outer Space Treaty). Vice versa as per the same Article, a state potentially victimized by such harmful interference may require consultations – yet there is not obligation not to create any space debris, let alone to clean up one’s own or indeed any space debris already out there. 

In that sense, the only remaining support coming directly from the space treaties of relevance here would be the inclusion of space debris in the concept of “space object”, which means that damage caused by space debris under the Liability Convention would give rise to compensation – on the assumption, of course, that the launching state of that space debris could (still) be identified.

Only recently legal developments have started to address the problem of space debris more profoundly. Partly in further elaboration of the aforementioned Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty, the major space agencies gathered together in the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) in 2002 drafted a first set of (legally non-binding) Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines, which has been further buttressed by a relevant set of UNCOPUS guidelines in 2010. Those guidelines may well develop into customary international law over the coming years, in particular as increasingly individual states licensing private operators include compliance with the guidelines in the conditions for being granted a license to undertake space activities in the first place – which is certainly binding upon those licensees. Of the countries concerned with GNSS, at least for the United States and the member states of ESA (which is a prominent member of the IADC) this holds true, which means such principles will also be applied at least to GPS- and Galileo-related launches.

In Conclusion
While it is clear that GNSS constitutes one of the most beneficial space operations and space-based applications, the legal regime pursuant to international space law remains fairly general and limited in its specific guidance of such operations and activities. Partly that is due to a general lack of political awareness of the relevance of compliance with such issues as registration and space debris, which would hopefully change as more and more terrestrial users become dependent upon satellite navigation services. Partly it is due to the remaining crucial impact of national sovereignty in this particular field of international law; the absence of sovereign control by other states than the GNSS operator states over the applications on their territory or within their airspace and the potential consequences in terms of liability understandably causes a considerable amount of hesitation in allowing to reap the full potential benefits of GNSS.

In Europe, with respect to Galileo, the legal situation is even more wanting. While ESA is able to register satellites and has actually done so with the first few launched, the leading position that the EU has increasingly taken in this respect has not yet translated into properly addressing such issues – neither have, probably as a consequence of the Union’s lead role, individual EU/ESA member states such as France, Germany or Italy. Thus, even at the level of the fairly succinct body of international space law, much still needs to be done to arrive at a proper legal framework properly implemented.

Additional Resources 
[1] Charter of the United Nations (UN Charter), San Francisco, done 26 June 1945, entered into force 24 October 1945; USTS 993; 24 UST 2225; 59 Stat. 1031; 145 UKTS 805; UKTS 1946 No. 67; Cmd. 6666 & 6711; CTS 1945 No. 7; ATS 1945 No. 1.
[2] Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU Constitution), Geneva, done 22 December 1992, entered into force 1 July 1994; 1825 UNTS 1; UKTS 1996 No. 24; Cm. 2539; ATS 1994 No. 28; Final Acts of the Additional Plenipotentiary Conference, Geneva, 1992 (1993), at 1.
[3] Convention of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU Convention), Geneva, done 22 December 1992, entered into force 1 July 1994; 1825 UNTS 1; UKTS 1996 No. 24; Cm. 2539; ATS 1994 No. 28; Final Acts of the Additional Plenipotentiary Conference, Geneva, 1992 (1993), at 71.
[4] Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (Liability Convention), London/Moscow/Washington, done 29 March 1972, entered into force 1 September 1972; 961 UNTS 187; TIAS 7762; 24 UST 2389; UKTS 1974 No. 16; Cmnd. 5068; ATS 1975 No. 5; 10 ILM 965 (1971).
[5] Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (Registration Convention), New York, done 14 January 1975, entered into force 15 September 1976; 1023 UNTS 15; TIAS 8480; 28 UST 695; UKTS 1978 No. 70; Cmnd. 6256; ATS 1986 No. 5; 14 ILM 43 (1975).
[6] Radio Regulations Articles, Edition of 2016 (Radio Regulations).
[7] Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (Outer Space Treaty), London/Moscow/Washington, done 27 January 1967, entered into force 10 October 1967; 610 UNTS 205; TIAS 6347; 18 UST 2410; UKTS 1968 No. 10; Cmnd. 3198; ATS 1967 No. 24; 6 ILM 386 (1967).
[8] United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs; see here; search “Galileo”.

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Precise timing is essential for the functioning of any global navigation satellite system (GNSS). GNSS themselves are part of national critical infrastructures in key sectors of the economy such as electricity distribution, telecommunications, and all modes of transport, which require accurate and reliable time to operate effectively. In all of these sectors, the time information required can be obtained from GNSS signals, underpinned by the international infrastructure for time and frequency metrology. In this article, we will describe this global metrology system for timekeeping, explain how it underpins the time information provided by GNSS, and introduce the important concept of traceability in measurement.

According to the U.S. Government’s official GPS website: “In addition to longitude, latitude, and altitude, the Global Positioning System (GPS) provides a critical fourth dimension – time. Each GPS satellite contains multiple atomic clocks that contribute very precise time data to the GPS signals. GPS receivers decode these signals, effectively synchronizing each receiver to the atomic clocks. This enables users to determine the time to within 100 billionths of a second (100 nanoseconds), without the cost of owning and operating atomic clocks.” The term “time” is used with at least two connotations: time interval and time of day. In many countries, laws or decrees prescribe the use of certain units such as the second of the International System of units (or SI) for time interval and its inverse, the hertz, for frequency.

In official use, a link to the national time standards maintained in National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) – such as the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom and Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany – is essential if measurements are being made with any claim to accuracy. Many countries have a “time law” that prescribes adherence to a certain time scale as the legal time, and often the NMI, or sometimes another institute, is entrusted explicitly with its dissemination. In practice, the common global time scale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), provides the underlying reference in all countries, with the appropriate time zone and summer time offsets applied.

From a purely technical point of view, GNSS signals are capable of providing the required time information. All GNSS system time scales are based on the international reference time scale, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). There are two types of offsets between these system time scales and UTC. Integer second offsets exist because leap seconds have been introduced in UTC, but not in GPS time, Galileo System Time (GST), or BeiDou time. In addition, at the nanosecond level, “small” offsets exist. But when it comes to court, questions may be asked such as “Who told the satellite clock what time-of-day it is?” Or “Are the time-of-day and the time unit provided by GNSS traceable to UTC?” Traceability is a key concept in metrology, and requires an unbroken chain of comparisons or calibrations between a measurement result and a reference standard, with measurement uncertainty assigned to each step. The words in italics are close to the definition of the term in the International Vocabulary of Metrology (known by its French abbreviation, VIM), and apply just as much to a measurement of time based on received GNSS satellite signals as to any other measurement procedure.

In the next section, we will explain in brief the operation of the international metrology system and the realization of UTC to which the national realizations and thus legal times adhere. A section on dissemination of GNSS times follows, including some detail about the “time”-related quantities included. Finally, we discuss options for the validation of GNSS time signals so that their use can be compliant with legal prescriptions and briefly touch upon the issue of liability.

The BIPM and Time Scales
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) is the intergovernmental organization which organizes and supports the joint work of Member State signatories of the Metre Convention on matters related to metrology and measurement standards. The BIPM, which is located in Paris, France, is overseen by the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM), made up of 18 elected representatives from the NMIs. The CIPM also has a number of Consultative Committees that provide more detailed guidance and coordination of specific areas of metrology, including the Consultative Committee for Time and Frequency (CCTF). Overall supervision and strategy formulation is provided by the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), formed by delegates from the 58 Member States who meet every four years.

The BIPM has the particular task to generate and disseminate the international reference time scale UTC, which is carried out by its Time Department. UTC is a post-processed time scale; it is the result of worldwide cooperation of 78 institutes (as of March 2017), mainly NMIs, but also including some astronomical observatories and research centers that operate high-quality atomic clocks and time transfer equipment, which we will collectively refer to as timing centers. Clock and time transfer data are regularly reported to the BIPM, which calculates UTC early in each calendar month from data covering the previous month. The results of the processing are published in the BIPM Circular T. UTC is thus a “paper” time scale and is physically represented (only) by the realizations of UTC, known as UTC(k) time scales, maintained by the 78 timing centers. UTC provides the reference for all precise time and frequency measurements and transmissions worldwide, including the GNSS system time scales, as will be explained below.

Each monthly Circular T reports the time differences UTC – UTC(k) at 5-day intervals, with specified uncertainties. As an example, illustrating the accuracy achieved today and the significance for GNSS, the differences from UTC over one year of three time scales that serve as references for GNSS system times are depicted in Figure 1 (see the top of this article for all figures). UTC(USNO) is realized at the United States Naval Observatory, Washington D.C., and serves as the time reference for GPS. UTC(SU) is realized at the Russian Institute VNIIFTRI, Mendeleevo, Moscow Region, and serves as the time reference for GLONASS. UTCE is the average of five UTC(k) time scales realized at European timing institutes, and serves as the time reference for Galileo.

It is important to note that many, though not all, of the institutes maintaining UTC(k) time scales are NMIs that are signatories of the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) established by the CIPM. The MRA provides a framework for NMIs to demonstrate the equivalence of their measurement standards and services. Thus, traceability to UTC can in theory be obtained equivalently from any of the NMIs that are signatories of the CIPM MRA. However, there is a stumbling block: USNO is not an NMI and thus did not sign the MRA, so it is not able to demonstrate formal traceability to UTC through its UTC(USNO) time scale based on its internal measurement capabilities. The other institutes involved are NMIs and are covered by the MRA. Further measures are therefore needed to obtain traceability to UTC in the strict sense by receiving GPS signals.

Metrology worldwide is coordinated through the regional metrology organizations (RMOs), with memberships based on the NMIs of the countries represented. There are currently six RMOs, as shown in Figure 2. The European Association of National Metrology Institutes, known as EURAMET, is the RMO that covers Europe. It coordinates the cooperative activities of NMIs in Europe in fields such as metrology research, traceability of measurements to the SI units, international recognition of national measurement standards, and certification of the Calibration and Measurement Capabilities (CMCs) of its members. The work of EURAMET is organized in 12 Technical Committees (TC), of which one deals with Time and Frequency (TC-TF). The EURAMET website lists the institutes participating in TC-TF, which are the institutes responsible for time and frequency in each country, and the current contact persons.

A study of the legal time regulations and practices across Europe was published by the EURAMET TC-TF in 2011, and is available for download from the EURAMET website. It revealed wide variations in the procedures adopted by different countries. For example, just over half of the 34 countries participating in the survey have their legal time defined in legislation, but in varying levels of detail. In 11 of those countries the NMI is responsible for realizing legal time, but dissemination of legal time is an NMI responsibility in 20 countries. In all countries, however, UTC is in practice the underlying reference time scale, with the appropriate time zone and daylight saving time offsets applied.

GNSS Time Scales and How they are Disseminated
The primary purpose of any GNSS is to serve as a positioning and navigation system. But each system relies on accurate timing, and pseudorange measurements made by a receiver are combined with the data reported in the GNSS navigation message to provide among other parameters, time to users that require it. Details of signal properties and the on-board configurations of the satellites in the existing GNSS are well documented and explained further in textbooks on GNSS, including in the handbook published by the International Telecommunication Union (2010) listed in Additional Resources near the end of this article. The navigation messages include the almanac, orbit parameters, and parameters that relate the individual satellite clock time to the underlying GNSS system time. Details of the data format are given in the sidebar “Tabulating Time-Related Data from Galileo and GPS Navigation Messages.” As explained in the context of Figure 1, the system times are steered towards realizations of UTC, except for the integer second offsets that result from different choices of origin and system time scales (other than that of GLONASS) not applying leap second adjustments.

Using GNSS Signals as a Source of UTC
Two distinct types of GNSS timing receiver have been developed. The more sophisticated “scientific” receivers, sometimes called time transfer receivers, determine the pseudorange of each satellite in view with respect to signals from a local reference clock connected to the receiver, and use the information contained in the navigation message to provide output data in the form of local reference clock minus GNSS time. Recommendations on a common data file format and a standard formula and parameters for data evaluation were developed jointly by the BIPM and the CCTF. For wider use, in particular for positioning and navigation, the “Receiver Independent Exchange” format, RINEX, was developed as part of the work of the International GNSS Service (IGS).

For this article, the more relevant receivers are those designed to discipline the frequency of their inbuilt quartz oscillator (or rubidium atomic frequency standard) to GNSS time and to deliver standard frequency (typically 10 megahertz) and a one-pulse-per-second (1 PPS) output signals representing the GNSS time. A GPS-only device like this is often called a GPS-disciplined oscillator (GPSDO), and is widely used in calibration laboratories, industry, and wherever accurate frequency is required. Another class of instruments outputs the time-of-day information, converted from the navigation message, either in a clock display, in standard electrical time codes such as IRIG, or by acting as a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server for time dissemination in networks. We will consider the use of these devices in the next section.

The EURAMET TC-TF has prepared a technical guide for calibration laboratories that use GPSDOs as their source of frequency or time traceability to UTC, which was published in 2016, and is available for download (see Additional Resources). The guide discusses in detail the requirements that a calibration laboratory should meet in order to claim formal traceability to UTC when using a GPSDO. The considerable variations in regulations across Europe created some complications, but there was agreement on a range of core requirements. In particular, calibration of the GPSDO is recommended if low uncertainties are claimed (better than 1 microsecond for time, or 1 part in 10¹¹ for frequency), and a method is needed to verify correct operation when the GPSDO is in use, for example by monitoring its internal control parameters or by comparing it with a second, independent, standard.

Validation of GNSS-Based Timing
Figure 4 sketches the steps from GNSS signal generation in the GNSS Ground Segment (GS), through the Space Segment (SS), to the user application. Inside the perimeter of GNSS operations, there are certainly numerous cross-checks to verify the properties of the GNSS system time and the parameters of the navigation message. Each of the GNSS operators has established a public web portal with information about anomalies, signal outages etc. In the case of Galileo, the European GNSS Service Centre provides “Notice Advisories to Galileo Users” (NAGUs). But these do not represent a satellite-by-satellite publicly available verification of signal content, or a means to establish traceability of measurements based on GNSS signals to national or international standards.

The situation at the boundary line between the space and user segments (SS-US in Figure 4) has become a hot topic: how to protect against spoofing, and how to verify or authenticate the signals arriving at the receiver? The subject was recently treated in depth in Inside GNSS in an article by Gianluca Caparra et alia (2016).

In some GNSS markets, including civil aviation and the maritime sector, certification has become common practice or even mandatory. The certification covers the receiver performance, assuming well-defined properties of the received signal at the SS-US border (such as carrier-to-noise density ratio, level of multipath, and interfering signals in neighboring frequency bands). This topic was addressed in Inside GNSS in an article by Jules McNeff (2012). One kind of certification employs a certified signal simulator as a source of signals to be fed directly to the receiver. This, of course, covers only part of the problem. A full certification test would have to take into account the antenna, including its environmental conditions and the antenna cable.

In the timing community, such formal procedures are rare. The 78 laboratories worldwide operate around 200 GNSS timing receivers from at least five different, commercially independent manufacturers. There is therefore some variety of both hardware (front-end, signal processing etc.) and the proprietary software to provide data outputs, enabling confidence in their performance to be built up through cross-comparisons. This network of receivers can be considered as a verification mechanism for the timing properties of GNSS signals. The GNSS monitoring bulletins published free of charge by several NMIs, including NPL and PTB, provide a readily available means of confirming that the broadcast GNSS timing signals were correct. The bulletins support the demonstration of traceability between measurements made using the space signals, for example when using a GPSDO, and the UTC(k) time scale of the issuing NMI.

To be more specific, we can consider the situation in PTB. Up to eight GNSS receivers from four different manufacturers have been operated during recent years, and their observations are compared daily. Standard daily observation files in the formats described in the paper by Pascale Defraigne and Gérard Petit, (2015) and listed in Additional Resources, and – as far as possible — in RINEX format are publicly available for the previous day at <ftp://ftp.ptb.de/pub/time/GNSS/> in various folders. These files provide a direct reference to UTC(PTB) for the experienced user. For the public, a weekly Time Service Bulletin (TSB) is published at ftp://ftp.ptb.de/pub/time/bulletin/. Users in Germany who seek to obtain traceability to German legal time from GNSS signals are advised to take note of the contents of the TSB, or are guided to perform data analysis by following standard procedures to obtain evidence of the performance of their local equipment. Near-real-time services that also verify the full data content of the navigation message (see again the sidebar at the end of this article) are not yet available, but such services are possible to set up using the real-time services provided by the IGS.

Dissemination of GNSS Time Across Networks
Time distribution in Local Area Networks using the Network Time Protocol (NTP) or the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) has become well established, and a wide variety of equipment is on the market to serve the needs. For security reasons, the servers used are often not connected to the internet. Instead of obtaining time via NTP from public servers, the time-of-day information included in the GNSS SIS is translated into the NTP or PTP messages. The line labelled REC-APPL in Figure 4 indicates that the transmission of time information from a receiver into an application is another process whose correctness needs to be assessed carefully to verify traceability. One option, implemented in some equipment, is to cross-check the time-of-day information from the GNSS signals against the time signals received through a second reference, which would typically be a dedicated standard frequency and time broadcast service, such as DCF77 in Germany and MSF in the U.K.

Within Europe, new regulations drafted by the financial services regulator, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), specify that beginning January 3, 2018, all automated trades are timestamped to UTC with an uncertainty no greater than 100 microseconds. After consultation, ESMA has concluded that GPS and other GNSS services can be used as the time source provided that measures are put in place to demonstrate traceability and that the receiver is working correctly. Exchanges and trading venues must therefore modify or upgrade their timing infrastructure to provide evidence of UTC traceability at all times when trading is taking place, even if they are already distributing time through their networks from a GNSS source.

With such regulations in place in finance, and similar timing requirements appearing in other areas such as smart-grids and the efficient use of renewable energy, the question of the liability of GNSS operators in the event of users incurring significant costs as a result of errors in the signals received at the SS-US interface (see Figure 3) has become quite topical. Although we are not qualified to answer legal questions, our understanding is that the so-called Interface Control Documents (ICDs), cited in the sidebar at the end of this article for the cases of GPS and Galileo, are the primary references in any controversy. If the signals generated in the Space Segment comply with the specifications in the ICDs, the operator of the GNSS has done its job well.

Many readers will remember the “GPS Ground System Anomaly” reported by the U.S. Air Force on Jan 27, 2016. In its official press release it stated: “On 26 January at 12:49 a.m. MST, the 2nd Space Operations Squadron at the 50th Space Wing, Schriever Air Force Base, Colo., verified users were experiencing GPS timing issues. Further investigation revealed an issue in the Global Positioning System ground software which only affected the time on legacy L-band signals. This change occurred when the oldest vehicle, SVN 23, was removed from the constellation. While the core navigation systems were working normally, the coordinated universal time timing signal was off by 13 microseconds which exceeded the design specifications.” The publicly available information, derived from the detailed analysis of the event provided from the proceedings of ION GNSS+ 2016 and listed in Additional Resources, indicates that the parameters A0 and WN_OT (see Table 3) were transmitted incorrectly by an increasing number of satellites for several hours. However, the ICD states that such data should be regarded as invalid if WN_OT is so different from the current epoch (here more than two years).

If any user application was affected by this anomaly – it affected only timing users, not positioning services – the software routines evaluating the SIS messages were not sufficiently following the underlying ICD. It therefore appears unlikely that the GNSS operator could be held liable for any losses incurred in this or similar cases, although it will not be possible to make any definitive statements until a claim has been tested in a court of law.

A Look Ahead at Liability
To conclude this section, we try to analyze the aspect of liability from our (non-expert) point of view. Should a future event cause real loss or damage to users of GNSS time applications, the legal treatment of claims would be faced with enormous complexities. While the stakeholders involved would likely undertake all necessary investigations for identifying the root cause of the event, affected users would also have to provide proof of underlying fault. As users will lack the necessary insights into the complex chain underlying GNSS time applications, provision of such proof may be very difficult. The detailed legal background was reported in an earlier contribution in this “GNSS & the Law” column (see Additional Resources). According to this analysis, no contractual liability could be evoked if the root cause lies in the performance of one of the GNSS systems. Non-contractual liability is limited due to the doctrine of sovereign immunity and applicable national laws on state liability. Both the U.S. and Russian governments traditionally deny any legal responsibility for the performance of GPS or GLONASS system and signal performance, and China also has not made any commitments in this respect.

Regarding Galileo, the European Union (EU) as the owner of the system and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) as the user services provider, theoretically bear non-contractual liability under Article 340 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). However, compensation is to be made “in accordance with the general principles common to the laws of the Member States”, which leaves a significant level of uncertainty. Furthermore, the European Commission has recently published so-called Service Definition Documents for the Open Service and Search and Rescue initial services. Both documents contain terms and conditions for the use of these services, including a rather far-reaching disclaimer of liability. The EU and the other entities involved do not offer any warranty regarding service availability, continuity, accuracy, integrity, reliability and fitness for purpose. They shall not be held liable for any damages resulting from the use of the service, other than in accordance with Article 340 TFEU. Even for Galileo, affected users will be faced with significant legal and factual barriers to receiving compensation.

On the international level, there are no specific legal instruments governing liability for GNSS signals and services.

For more than 15 years, the matter has been discussed within the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT). However, all these efforts have not resulted in any common position or the development of any proposal for a legal instrument. Overall, users will therefore have enormous difficulties in receiving compensation for their loss or damage arising from malfunctioning of GNSS time services.

Conclusion
Precise time is crucial to a great variety of economic activities around the world. Communication systems, electric power grids, and financial networks all rely on accurate and reliable timing for synchronization and operational efficiency. The free availability of GPS time has enabled cost savings for companies that depend on precise time and has led to significant advances in capability.

Companies worldwide use GPS to time-stamp business transactions, providing a consistent and accurate way to maintain records and ensure their traceability. Major financial institutions use GPS to obtain precise time for setting the internal clocks used to timestamp financial transactions. Large and small businesses are turning to automated systems that can track, update, and manage multiple transactions made by a global network of customers, and these require the accurate timing information available through GPS and from other GNSS in the near future.

We have shown in this article how the time obtained from GNSS satellite signals is related to the international time scale, UTC, and explained how GNSS receivers can be used, with some care to ensure that they are operating correctly, as reliable and traceable sources of time.

SIDEBAR: Tabulating Time-Related Data from Galileo and GPS Navigation Messages

Here, we describe the time-related data from the navigation messages of Galileo and GPS, which are almost identical in format and content.

Space Clock Offset from System Time
The correction between the individual space vehicle clock and GNSS system time at a given time is calculated from the transmitted parameters, here shown for Galileo in Table 1 (see inset, above right, for all tables) (European GNSS [Galileo] Open Service Signal In Space Interface Control Document, OD SIS ICD, European Union (2010), listed in Additional Resources [IB1]). The corresponding definition for GPS is given in §20.3.3.3.1.8 and the associated Table 20-1 in Global Positioning Systems Directorate Systems Engineering & Integration, Interface Specification IS-GPS-200H, listed in Additional Resources [IB2].

Week Numbering and Time of Week
GPS week number zero (0) started at midnight UTC(USNO) Jan. 5, 1980 /morning of Jan. 6, 1980, according to 6.2.4 adapted from specifications described in [IB2]. The Galileo week zero corresponds to GPS week 1024, which after week roll-over was reported as week zero. The GST start epoch was 00:00 UTC Sunday, Aug. 22, 1999. At that epoch, GST was ahead of UTC by 13 seconds. As 12 bits are reserved for the week number, roll over occurs only after about 78 years. Table 2 lists the parameters, as reported in Table 63 of [IB1].

Offset Between System Time and UTC
Both GPS and Galileo provide parameters to estimate time in UTC from the system time for a given epoch. The parameters comprise the integer seconds offset due to the leap seconds in UTC, and offset and rate coefficients for the accurate prediction of the difference (at ns-level). They are listed in Table 3, based on §20.3.3.5.2.4 of [IB2] and Table 69 of [IB1]. As previously stated, offset from UTC means from UTC(USNO) in the case of GPS and from a prediction of UTC, based on UTCE, in the case of Galileo. We can see from Figure 1 that – at least for the period covered – the differences are marginal, but not zero and not identical. Tables 2 and 3 represent the means of accurately determining “time-of-day” in UTC via GNSS signals.

Offset Between System Times
In support of interoperability, GPS and Galileo report the predicted time offset between the two system times, termed GGTO, in the navigation message. This is covered by §5.1.8 of [IB1] and §30.3.3.8 in [IB2], respectively. In the sign convention of [IB2] the quantity GGTO is equal to Galileo System Time (GST) minus GPS time. GNSS receivers that generate data files according to the Receiver Independent Exchange Format RINEX version 3.01 and higher report these quantities. As an example, see the header of a navigation file (Figure 3 in the main text) retrieved from a GNSS timing receiver, operated at PTB. The file was generated on day 310 of year 2016, day 6 of GPS week 1921 (WN), which starts with second 518400 (TOW). Quantities of interest here are shown in the red lines. GPGA represents GGTO as just defined, although the wording on the sign can be a bit ambiguous.

Additional Resources
[1] Baumann, I., “Liability for GNSS Signals and Services”, Inside GNSS, Vol. 10, No. 6, Nov./Dec. 2015, pp. 38-45, 2015.
[2] Caparra, G., and C. Wullems, S. Ceccato, S. Sturaro, N. Laurenti, O. Pozzobon, R.T. Ioannides, and M. Crisci, “Design Drivers and New Trends for Navigation Message Authentication Schemes for GNSS Systems”, Inside GNSS, Volume Sept./Oct. 2016, pp. 64 – 73, 2016.
[3] Defraigne, P. and G. Petit, “CGGTTS-Version 2E: an extended standard for GNSS Time Transfer,” Metrologia, Volume 52, G1, 2015.
[4] Dow, J. M., and R.M. Neilan, and G. Gendt, “The International GPS Service: celebrating the 10th anniversary and looking to the next decade,” Adv. Space Res. 36 (2005) 320.
[5] EURAMET TC-TF, “Guidelines on the Use of GPS Disciplined Oscillators for Frequency or Time Traceability, Technical Guide No. 3, Version 1.0 (2016),” free download here.
[6] European GNSS (Galileo) Open Service Signal In Space Interface Control Document, OD SIS ICD, Issue 1, February 2010, European Union 2010; Listed as [IB1] in the main text.
[7] Global Positioning Systems Directorate Systems Engineering & Integration, Interface Specification IS-GPS-200H, 24. Sept. 2013; Listed as [IB2] in the main text.
[8] Guinot, B. and E.F. Arias, “Atomic time-keeping from 1955 to the present”, Metrologia, Volume 42, pp. 20-30, 2005.
[9] Gurtner, W., and Estey, L., “RINEX The Receiver Independent Exchange Format Version 3.01,” Werner Gurtner, Astronomical Institute University of Bern, and Lou Estey, UNAVCO Boulder, Co., 22 June 2009.
[10] ITU Study Group 7, “ITU Handbook: Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer and Dissemination, International Telecommunication Union,” Geneva, 2010.
[11] Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology, “International vocabulary of metrology — Basic and general concepts and associated terms (VIM)”, Working Group 2 of the Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology (JCGM/WG 2) (2008).
[12] Kovach, K., and P.J. Mendicki, E.D. Powers, and B. Renfro, “GPS Receiver Impact from the UTC Offset (UTCO) Anomaly of 25-26 January 2016”, Proceedings of the 29th International Technical Meeting of the ION Satellite Division, ION GNSS+ 2016, Portland, Oregon, September 12-16, 2016
[13] Lapuh, R., “EURAMET Countries’ Legal Time Regulations and Practices,” EURAMET e.V., 2011, for download here.
[14] McNeff, J., “GPS Receiver Specifications – Compliance and Certification”, Inside GNSS, Vol. 7, No. 3, May/June 2012, pp. 50-56, 2012.
[15] Piriz, R., et alia, “The Time Validation Facility (TVF): An All-New Key Element of the Galileo Operational Phase”, in Proc. IFCS2015_paper_5130, 2015.

The post Traceable Time from GNSS Signals appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is China’s contribution to the world in the domain of Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS). The BDS is being developed by the Chinese government, mainly through military departments, with key considerations for China’s national security, economic interests and social progress.

The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is China’s contribution to the world in the domain of Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS). The BDS is being developed by the Chinese government, mainly through military departments, with key considerations for China’s national security, economic interests and social progress.

After decades of development, the BDS has been recognized as one of the four big players in the field of GNSS. China has also started the development of a comprehensive positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) system with enough capabilities for air, sea, land, underground and underwater terminals, and the BDS is designed as the most important component.

From a structural point of view, the BDS is similar to the other GNSSs and composed of the satellite constellation, distributed ground facilities — including master control stations, uplink stations, and monitoring stations — and user receivers. One special feature is the inclusion of 5 geostationary satellites, raising the number of satellites in the constellation to 35. Another differentiator from the U.S. GPS, Russian GLONASS, and European Galileo system is its unique function of short message communications and position reporting capability, benefiting from the Chinese government’s strong support on both technical and financial aspects.

The BDS is designed and developed as a space infrastructure of national significance to offer two basic services: an open service free of charge and an authorized service with higher quality and integrity. At the current stage, applications based on the BDS are gradually penetrating to every corner of people’s lives and economic activities in the Asia-Pacific Region, particularly for meteorological observation, transport management and search & rescue.

Strategy of the BDS Development
Bearing in mind the mature technology and the policy of free access to open signals provided by GPS, many questions arose about why China should make substantive efforts to develop its own GNSS. However, in addition to the economic benefits created by the navigation industry, developing a domestically controlled GNSS was considered as a national security advantage.

Back in 1996 when the third Taiwan Strait Crisis started, two Chinese missiles failed to reach their targets during an exercise. Chinese military authorities believed that the event occurred due to the U.S. denial of GPS signals. Since then, China decided to develop a satellite navigation system under its own control and to complete the construction of the first generation of the BDS (BDS-1) at the beginning of 21st century.

However, as the BDS-1 was just a regional system with little commercial value, the Chinese government accepted the invitation from the European Union (EU) to join the Galileo program, with the ultimate goal of challenging the monopoly of the U.S. GPS. However, due to certain disagreements with the European Union, including China’s claim of being excluded from the key decision-making process and technical cooperation in the Galileo program, China decided to re-focus its attention on constructing its own GNSS.

Currently, China ranks the BDS as one of the key national technical projects, supported by specific funding; the BDS program is organized pursuant to a three-step strategy: (1) the construction of BDS-1, which was finished in 2000, with the goal of providing services over all of Chinese territory; (2) the construction of the BDS-2, which has been in operation since 2012 with the purpose of covering the Asia-Pacific region; (3) the deployment of the full constellation of BDS satellites, scheduled for completion by around 2020 and intended to offer global services.

Governance Structure of the BDS
Similar to GPS and GLONASS, the BDS is a dual system used for both military and civilian purposes. However, no official source has yet affirmed that the BDS is developed and exclusively controlled by Chinese military departments, despite a widespread belief that many ties exist between the BDS and Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Official publications about the BDS simply use the expression “Chinese government” or “China”.

Furthermore, no official information on the governance structure of the BDS has been formally released, even though a general framework of BDS-related authorities can be drawn out through available open news reports and documents about the BDS. The key organizations involved in the BDS program are the following:

The China Satellite Navigation Committee (中国卫星导航系统委员会, hereinafter referred to as the CSNC). The CSNC seems to be the top decision making organ on the fundamental strategy and policy of the BDS and other Chinese PNT systems. On the one hand, the CSNC gives the opening address to the annual China Satellite Navigation Conference, which shows its important position in the supervisory framework of the BDS for domestic activities. On the other hand, the CSNC has also been working thus far as the leading authority for international cooperation involving the BDS. For example, the CSNC, on behalf of China and as the chairman of the Chinese side of China-Russia Cooperation Program Committee on Satellite Navigation, signed the “China’s BeiDou System and Russian GLONASS System Compatibility and Interoperability Cooperation Joint Statement” with the former Russian Federal Space Agency (currently known as the State Space Corporation ROSCOSMOS) in 2015.

The China Satellite Navigation Office (中国卫星导航系统管理办公室, CSNO). Under the leadership of the CSNC, the CSNO is in charge of the management work of the BDS. The CSNO is a joint office established by the competent governmental departments involved in BDS activities. For now, the CSNO is working on the system construction, application promotion, and industrialization of the BDS.

To aid in making scientific management and technical decisions, the CSNO is supported by its two internal branches, namely the Expert Committee and the Expert Teams. In addition, the CSNO is responsible for releasing top-level official policies and technical documents on the BDS both in Chinese and English as well as approving the documents on BDS-related performance and standard criteria. The CSNO also operates the official website of the BDS.

The Central Station for Satellite Navigation (卫星导航定位总站, hereinafter the CSSN). The CSSN is the Navigation Force under the leadership of Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission (formerly known as the General Staff Department of Chinese People’s Liberation Army). The CSSN was established as the agency for the management and operation of the BDS in 1999. Although the competence of the CSSN was described as “the research, demonstration, development, operation and application guarantee of the BDS,” it focuses more on the operation of the control segment comprising various ground stations of the BDS.

The China National Administration of GNSS and Applications (中国卫星导航定位应用管理中心, CNAGA). The CNAGA is the functional department for the application management of the BDS, which is contributing to promote the large-scale industrialization and international development of the BDS. Specifically, the CNAGA has an announced commitment to the following four aspects of the BDS:

• management of the operation and maintenance of the BDS, so as to ensure the successive and reliable provision of BDS services;
• supervision over the manufacturing enterprises of BDS user segments, so as to ensure the quality and safety of BDS services; 
• development of basic application criteria and critical infrastructure of the BDS, so as to consolidate the basis of application development; 
• the establishment of innovation platforms in terms of an industry alliance, industry base, industry forum and international cooperation for the BDS, so as to promote the communication and cooperation among businesses.

The National Technical Committee on BeiDou Satellite Navigation of the Standardization Administration of China (全国北斗卫星导航标准化技术委员会, hereinafter the NTCBDSSA). The NTCBDSSA was established in 2014 and is under the joint leadership of the Standardization Administration of the People’s Republic of China (SAC) and the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission (formerly known as the General Armaments Department of Chinese People’s Liberation Army).

The NTCBDSSA is composed of 48 members, 7 observers and 3 liaisons, and the China Satellite Navigation Engineering Center (中国卫星导航工程中心) and the China Astronautics Standards Institute (中国航天标准化研究所) jointly comprise its secretariat. The competence scope of the NTCBDSSA covers the standardization activities concerning the management, construction, operation, application and service of the BDS. It is also in charge of developing civilian and military standards for the BDS both at the international and national level. However, all the standards proposed by the NTCBDSSA have to be approved by the CSNO before they come into force.

Based on the foregoing description, we may conclude that, in the context of the BDS, three main organizations have active roles: 1) the CSNO is responsible for the deployment and maintenance of the space segment, 2) the CSSN is operating the control segment, and 3) the CNAGA deals with supervision of the user segment, including the manufacturing of user receivers and the provision of PNT services.

In addition to these entities, as the BDS is a complicated system with interdisciplinary participation and cross-sectional dimension, many other authorities are involved in the management framework of the BDS. For example, the frequency protection of the BDS within the Chinese territory is under the responsibility of the Bureau of Radio Regulation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, which is also known as the State Radio Office.

Policy and Law of the BDS
Different from its competitors in the domain of satellite navigation, particularly the EU and the United States, China owns a unique socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics. China has recently placed great emphasis on the fundamental principle of governing the country by law. Accordingly, the rule of law has been proposed very frequently for China’s space industry.

However, China is still one of a few space powers that lacks a basic space law. Therefore, setting up a comprehensive legal framework for the BDS will arguably require some time. Until that can be achieved, a series of policy documents would have to retain the dominant role, even though policy solutions are much less effective than legal arrangements in the Chinese context. These include the following policy documents:

White Paper on China’s Space Activities. This white paper is currently the basic document relating to China’s space policy, and it always places great importance on the development of the BDS. The document has thus far been updated to the fourth version in 2016.

After summarizing certain achievements in the field of the BDS since 2006, the third version (2011) addresses the three-step strategy of the BDS and lists the BDS as one of the priority projects in key fields; the latest version (2016) requires the improvement of BDS applications and promotion of international cooperation of the BDS.

White Paper on China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System. This white paper was released in June 2016, which makes it the latest policy document concerning the BDS specifically. This white paper lays down the goals and principles related to the development of the BDS and again addresses the BDS three-step strategy.

According to the document, China is committed to ensuring the safe and reliable operation of the BDS and providing continuous, stable and reliable open services to users free of charge. In addition to protecting the utilization of the BDS frequency spectrum, the white paper also requires promotion of BDS applications and industrial development by taking multiple measures, as follows: 

• establishing an industrial supporting system, through making industrial policies, building equitable market environment, enhancing standardization process, and building a comprehensive service system of location data;
• establishing an industrial application promotion system, through improving the BDS application in key sectors related to national security and economy, pushing forward close integration of the BDS with state strategy on industrial and regional development, guiding mass market applications of the BDS in the fields of smart phones, vehicle-borne terminals, and wearable devices; 
• establishing an industrial innovative system, by enhancing the research and development of basic products based on the BDS, encouraging and supporting the construction of a technology innovation system that relies on the market players as the main factor combined with the efforts of academic institutes. The industrial system is called on to promote the integrated development of the BDS with infrastructures and technologies including the “Internet+”, “Big Data”, the “Internet of Things”, communications, remote sensing, and other emerging industries.

As for international cooperation of the BDS, the Chinese government plans to further the efforts by

• strengthening compatibility and joint applications with other navigation satellite systems;
• using frequency and orbital slot resources according to international rules, particularly the Radio Regulations by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); 
• promoting the ratification of the BDS in accordance with international standards, particularly those of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Third- Generation Mobile Communication Standard Partnership Project (Note that the BDS already gained recognition from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in November 2014); 
• participating in multilateral activities in the field of international satellite navigation, such as the conferences and academic exchanges hosted by the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG); 
• promoting international applications of the BDS by intensifying publicity and popularization of the BDS, and implementing internationalization projects in the field of policy, market, law and finance, and so forth.

Medium and Long Term Development Plan for China’s Satellite Navigation Industry. This policy document was approved by the State Council and released by its General Office in September 2013. The Plan makes overall arrangements for medium- and long-term development of the BDS and other satellite navigation industry developments. The Plan first analyzes the current situation of satellite navigation that the BDS faces at home and abroad; second, it lays down the guidelines and principles to develop China’s navigation industry.

More importantly, the development plan indicates the year of 2020 as the critical timeline for China to form a new innovation-oriented development pattern. To achieve that goal, the development plan lays out six specific directions and tasks and five major projects to develop BDS-related industry before the year of 2020. Several measures are proposed to support this initiative.

Several Opinions on the Promotion of Geo-information Industry Development. This policy document was released by the General Office of the State Council in January 2014 with the purpose of promoting the development of China’s geo-information industry as a whole. Accordingly, the industry development of the BDS is an important element to allow the integration between geo-information and PNT services, which is recognized as an important way to facilitate people’s lives.

Several Opinions on Promotion and Application of the BeiDou Satellite Navigation System by China’s National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-information. This policy document was issued by China’s National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-information in March 2013, with the purpose of implementing the prior policy documents. This policy document obviously was made from the perspective of BDS users. It urges the competent regional authorities on surveying, mapping and geo-information to accelerate the promotion of application and industrialization of the BDS, and to safeguard China’s national security and interest within their competence.

Provisions of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on the Administration of the Satellite Navigation Application. This military rule was issued by the former General Staff Department of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (currently known as Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission) and became effective on June 1, 2014. Although it has a lower status than “law” or “regulation”, this “rule” for now is the only legal-binding document in effect that relates directly and specifically to BDS applications.

The full text of this rule is not open to the public; however, the rule is known to be structured in 7 chapters, containing 36 articles, which specify the duties and responsibilities, programming and planning, application and approval, organizations, technical support, and security management regarding utilization of the BDS by Chinese military troops, particularly in combat situations.

In addition, some normative documents having no legal effect play an important role in the specific management of BDS-related activities. These documents are issued by

• the CNAGA, for example: Quality Management Provisions for BeiDou Civil Service, Authorized Management Methods of Quality Inspection Agencies for BeiDou Products, Performance Standard of Shipborne BeiDou Receiving Devices, and other authoritative information regarding BDS application management, certification of the BDS service and application, and inspection of BDS products’ quality;
• the CSNO, for example: BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Signal In Space Interface Control Document Open Service Signal, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Open Service Performance Standard, Terminology for BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), and 16 other standards prepared especially for the BDS.

Way Forward
Although China has made great achievements on the research, development, and construction of the BDS system, China’s deployment of the management of the BDS, including institutional, policy, and legal arrangements, is still in its infancy. This may, somewhat, clip the wings of its development, operations, and applications and may constrain its further popularization both at domestic and global level.

Although a vague governance structure has been delineated by the authors based on the currently available materials, the respective roles and responsibilities for the BDS still have to be well defined and disclosed in the form of law. The overlapping of responsibilities between the CSNO and the CNAGA should not be ignored. More importantly, a civilian-military coordination mechanism should be developed as soon as possible in order to promote the development of civil applications and to increase BDS commercialization both at internal and international level.

It is true that the strategy, goals, principles and action plans for the BDS are reflected by several policy documents, but none of them assigns specific tasks to each department; this inconsistency potentially compromises the implementation and enforceability of BDS policies in practice. Even though a law related to the BDS would be more legally binding than the planning and opinions that we have described here, only one classified military rule is available thus far for China’s GNSS program.

Fortunately, a regulation on satellite navigation proposed by the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission has been listed into the Research Items of the State Council Legislative Workplan for 2016, as one of the of Legislative Projects Related to Implementing the National Security Strategy and to Protecting National Security. Even though the term “Research Items” represents low priority, at least it lights up the hope for a future legal regulation of the BDS.

Additional Resources
[1] BeiDou Satellite System (BDS), official website.
[2] China National Administration of GNSS and Applications, official website.
[3] China Satellite Navigation Office, Report on the Development of BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, Version 2.2, December 2013
[4] China Satellite Navigation Office, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Open Service Performance Standard, Version 1.0, December 2013
[5] China Satellite Navigation Office, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System Signal In Space Interface Control Document Open Service Signal, Version 2.0, December 2013
[6] State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (Foreign Languages Press, 2016).

The post State of Play in China appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

This occasional feature by guest writers is coordinated by Ingo Baumann, co-founder and partner of BHO Legal in Cologne, Germany. His practice focuses on European high technology projects mainly in the space sector.

GNSS & The Law delves into the debates and developments around the new area of global satellite navigation system law.

This occasional feature by guest writers is coordinated by Ingo Baumann, co-founder and partner of BHO Legal in Cologne, Germany. His practice focuses on European high technology projects mainly in the space sector.

The post GNSS & the Law appeared first on Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design.

This year India entered the club of nations operating their own satellite navigation system. The Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) has a constellation of seven satellites – three in geostationary orbit and four in geosynchronous orbit — that are currently functioning satisfactorily from their designated orbital positions.

The IRNSS series satellites were launched by the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle), developed and operated by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). ISRO used the PSLV-XL, an upgraded version boosted by more powerful, stretched strap-on boosters to achieve higher payload capability. Two additional satellites are planned as ground spares.

Upon the successful launch of the seventh satellite, IRNSS-1G, on April 28, 2016, the Indian Prime Minister renamed the system NAVIC, or Navigation with Indian Constellation. NAVIC is a Hindi word for sailor or navigator.

The NAVIC ground segment provides the monitoring of the constellation status, computation of the orbital and clock parameters, and navigation data uploading. It comprises tracking, telemetry, control, and uplink stations, a Spacecraft Control Center, an IRNSS Timing Center, CDMA ranging stations, a Navigation Control Center, and data communication links.

IRNSS provides two types of services, the standard positioning service (SPS) and the restricted service (RS). Signals can be received with a single-frequency receiver for Standard Positioning Service (SPS), dual-frequency receiver for both SPS and RS service, and a multi-mode receiver compatible with other GNSS providers.

NAVIC’s main goal is to provide India with reliable position, navigation and timing (PNT) services through an independent system for national applications. However, the coverage area also includes neighboring countries (up to 1.500 kilometers from its border). India’s prime minister has invited the member states of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), which include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, to make use of NAVIC. An Extended Service Area would cover the rectangle from latitude 30 degrees South to 50 degrees North, and Longitude 30 degrees East to 130 degrees East.

NAVIC applications include terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation; disaster management, vehicle tracking and fleet management, integration with mobile phones, precise timing, mapping and navigation for hikers and drivers.

According to an article in The Times of India on April 5, 2014, the impetus for an independent national system is said to have originated from the Kargil War in 1999, when the United States reportedly denied India vital satellite information. (See also the article “How Kargil War with Pak Propelled India to Elite Space Club,” in the Deccan Chronicle, April 29, 2016. Available here.

“Until now we were dependent on their systems, now we are self-reliant,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a televised congratulatory message to scientists at ISRO upon the last NAVIC launch that completed the IRNSS constellation. Further political statements underlined the fact that the whole system has been developed and produced in India.

Legislative Framework
Even though IRNSS is strategically important to India, no dedicated legal framework exists governing use of the system. Although India has ratified all major international space treaties, including the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, 1968 Rescue Agreement, 1972 Liability Convention, and 1975 Registration Convention, no specific laws regulate the country’s space activities. However, India’s Constitution, Article 51, provides the foundation for implementing obligations arising from the international space treaties.

For the last five decades, space activities are completely within the government’s realm. The Allocation of Business Rules, laid under Article 77(3) of Indian Constitution, has provided the nation’s Space Department with the authority to regulate all programs related to space science, technology, and applications, which are largely executed by the Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO.

Until now, India has had little need for dedicated national space legislation. However, with completion of NAVIC/IRNSS and considering the increasing commercialization of space worldwide and the potential future participation of private industry in Indian space programs, new discussions on national space legislation have recently been initiated.

A step in this direction came with a workshop on national space legislation organized by ISRO in mid-January 2015. Six months later, the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, organized a round table conference on national space legislation. Conference attendees drafted a one-page document, the “Bangalore Declaration,” proposing the minimum content of potential future national space legislation.

However, the draft legislation is not yet public. The military, which is scrutinizing the document, will forward it to the Ministry of External Affairs once the vetting is complete, according to a February 29, 2016, article in the Deccan Herald.

This year, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposed a Geospatial Information Regulation Bill to regulate the acquisition, dissemination, publication and distribution of geospatial information in India. Titled the Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, the draft measure has received a lot of attention, both in India and abroad, but has been criticized for its highly restrictive approach.

The draft bill, according to its Article 37, will not apply to Indian government agencies. Instead, the Indian national government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, exempt from the provisions of the act ministries, departments, public sector enterprises, or any other attached or subordinate offices of the central or state governments. Should the bill be approved we could expect such exemptions will be declared for ISRO, the operation of the NAVIC system, and the provision of its services.

Currently, India’s space policy framework mainly consists of two documents, the 2000 SATCOM policy and the 2011 Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP). However, neither are applicable to satellite navigation.

The SATCOM document addresses policy implementation for nationwide satellite communications. The RSDP establishes the modalities for permitting and/or managing remote sensing data acquisition to support development activities.

NAVIC Interface Control Document
In June 2014, ISRO released the IRNSS Signal-in-Space Interface Control Document (ICD) for SPS. The document provides essential information to facilitate research and development and aid the commercial use of the IRNSS signals for navigation-based applications. It addresses signal modulations, frequency bands, received power levels, data structures, user algorithms, and similar subjects.

However, in contrast to ICD documents for other satellite navigation systems such as the Europe’s Galileo, the IRNSS document does not include any legal provisions, particularly regarding licenses of the ICD to use for building receivers or other types of equipment. The document only mentions that ISRO does not give any assurance on the fitness of the information furnished in the document for any specific purpose.

The document appears to be for information-only use. ISRO does not assume liability for any product’s development based on the information. Moreover, no liability is assumed for any consequences from the use of the information contained in the IRNSS SIS ICD for SPS. Further, the ICD “shall not be reproduced or transmitted, partly or wholly, in electronic or print medium without the consent of the publishing authority.”

The IRNSS SIS ICD for SPS could be subject to modification and update. Although the government said it would make its best effort to notify the public about updates of the ICD, it does not assume any obligation to advise any person or organization about such updates.

Envisaged Procurement for IRNSS Spare Satellites
Thus far, ISRO has built and launched the NAVIC constellation on its own. However, according to a September 2, 2016 article in The Hindu newspaper, ISRO is finalizing plans to procure two spare navigation satellites to be built by industry in the next two years.

According to the article, the first spare satellite will be built by March 2017 with ISRO’s oversight. However, the second spare satellite, expected a year later, will be built entirely by industry, according to M. Annadurai, ISRO Satellite Center director.

While the decision to procure NAVIC satellites from industry is an important step towards more involvement of private industry in India’s space programs, it will not change the public character of the NAVIC system. Its operations and service provision will remain under the responsibility of ISRO.

Reflections on India’s Dedicated Space Legislation
Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty imposes international responsibility upon countries for their activities in space. This article applies regardless of whether the activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities. As a major “Launching State” for spacecraft, India bears “unlimited liability in time and quantum” for damage caused by its space objects.

The Outer Space Treaty also requires non-governmental entities to obtain “authorization and continuing supervision” for their activities, which is seen as the basis for national space legislation but does not necessarily demand it. NAVIC, operated by ISRO as a government system, has no need for implementing dedicated space legislation, even given the procurement of spare satellites.

The space treaties establish liability for damages caused by space objects. However, it is recognized that the treaties do not regulate the provision of signals in space or space services, including those from satellite navigation systems. As of today, no specific international legal instrument governs liability for navigational satellite signals and services, and, as mentioned earlier, India presently does not have a specific legal regime in place.

One major legal issue is the potential liability of the government toward users and third parties arising from NAVIC signal and service interruptions or degradations. The Airport Authority of India (AAI) Act of 1994 (as amended in 2003), pursuant to the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, established the AAI as the service provider of aeronautical navigation facilities. Section 33 of the Act grants immunity to AAI and its officers from prosecution for action that result in damage or loss to users.

As far as services and applications designated for the general public are concerned, however, other laws and relevant jurisdiction may come into play. Another related aspect is industry’s potential liability for NAVIC-based downstream services and applications. The following sections examine two relevant cases addressing this issue.

Deficiency in Services under Consumer Protection Act of 1986
Section 2(1)(d) of India’s1986 Consumer Protection Act (CPA) defines two categories of consumers as any person, who:

(i) buys any goods for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any user of such goods other than the person who buys such goods for consideration paid or promised or partly paid or partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment, when such use is made with the approval of such person, but does not include a person who obtains such goods for resale or for any commercial purpose; or

(ii) hires or avails of any services for a consideration which has been paid or promised or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment and includes any beneficiary of such services other than the person who hires or avails of the services for consideration paid or promised, or partly paid and partly promised, or under any system of deferred payment, when such services are availed of with the approval of the first mentioned person but does not include a person who avails of such services for any commercial purpose.

For the present discussion, the second category of the definition is relevant as it relates to service provisions. It also includes the beneficiary of services hired or made use of. Although “consumer” does not include a person who avails him- or herself of services for any commercial purposes, the CPA indicates that use of NAVIC services taken for the purposes of earning livelihood by self-employment would be covered by the definition. To illustrate, a railway operator or airline making use of satellite navigation signals may not qualify as a consumer, but a taxi driver or bus driver using NAVIC signals or services would fall into the second category.

Section 2(1)(o) of the CPA defines “service,” as “service of any description which is made available to potential users . . . that is not free of charge or under contract of personal services” Furthermore, “[a]ny fault, imperfection, shortcoming or inadequacy in the quality, nature and manner of performance which is required to be maintained by or under any law for the time being in force or has been undertaken to be performed by a person in pursuance of a contract or otherwise in relation to any service has been deemed to be considered as ‘deficiency in services.’” [CPA, Section 2(1)(g)]

It may be argued that where NAVIC signals are provided free of charge to the users, the CPA may not be of any relief to those suffering damage. Because NAVIC’s intended objective is commercial use for downstream services and applications, however, in the absence of any specific legislation defining liabilities and responsibilities of satellite navigation service providers, victims of deficient service or a defective signal may find recourse under the CPA.

Free usage has been interpreted in a unique way in the case of Geetha Jethani v. Airport Authority of India and Ors. The facts of the case are as follows: Jyotsna Jethani, an eight-year-old girl, was crushed to death when she was sucked into an escalator due to some defect or fault in the escalator. The defect in the escalator was allegedly due to poor maintenance.

Jyotsna’s mother, Geetha Jethani, filed a lawsuit under the CPA against AAI, alleging deficiency in service, and claiming compensation for irreparable loss.

AAI contended that it was granted immunity under section 33 of the AAI Act, claiming that the family could not be viewed as an AAI consumer because the complainant had not hired or availed herself of any service from the AAI and no fee was charged by AAI from incoming passengers for the use of the escalators.

The Apex Consumer Court (National Commission) rejected AAI’s arguments, holding the Authority liable for “deficiency in services” within the ambit of CPA. The court noted that a deficiency had occurred because AAI had not duly maintained the escalator, which was a statutory function. Moreover, as thou-sands of passengers used these services, AAI had an additional duty of care for safety.

Although use of the escalator may not be termed as being free, the court held that, according to section 22 of the AAI Act, the AAI does have the power to charge fees for any other service or facility offered in connection with the aircraft operation at any airport or for providing air traffic services or for amenities given to the passengers. Furthermore, the free service provided to incoming passengers is covered by services rendered to outgoing passengers who pay entry fees and other kind of fees.

The Apex Consumer Court relied on the precedence set in the case of Indian Medical Association v. V. P. Shantha wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India had held that when service is offered on payment to some person as well as free to some others, it would fall within the ambit of the expression service as defined in Section 2(1)(o) of the Act, irrespective of the fact that the service is rendered free of charge to persons who do not pay for such service. Free service would also be service and the recipient a consumer under the Act.

Thus, legal precedent has been established in India to pierce the veil of immunity from prosecution embodied in Section 33 of the AAI Act and to bring the AAI within the purview of CPA.

Similarly, the courts have held that damage suffered due to excessive electricity voltage (Gujarat SEB Ltd. v. Zora Singh) or inordinate and unexplained delay in providing electricity supply to residential flat (Alarcity Foundation Ltd. v. T. N. Electricity Board and Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam v. Bodan Ram) rep-resented a “deficiency in service” within the meaning of CPA. Thus, ample precedence has been established for compensating for deficiency in “services,” which the courts in India might likely take with respect to NAVIC services. Victims of faulty signals who do not fall within the definition of “consumer” may come under the jurisdiction of other statutory adjudicatory authorities. In the case of any commercial dispute or breach of contractual obligation, recourse is also open to appropriate courts in India or even to arbitration.

Lesson from the Call Drop Case
As reported in the Hindustan Times, on May 11, 2016, the call dropping case adjudicated in Cellular Operators Association of India and Ors. v. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Ors. reflects consumer’s high expectations for the precision sought from telecom service providers. The calls, which automatically get disconnected due to network issues, are one of the biggest problems for the 900 million or so Indian mobile subscribers. The independent Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) regulates the telecommunications business in India. TRAI regulations as amended in 2015 demand that telecom operators compensate their customers for dropped calls at the rate of one rupee per dropped call to a maximum of three dropped calls per consumer.

The Cellular Operators Association of India challenged the amended regulation in the High Court of Delhi. The High Court, which upheld the regulation, said the regulation was an exercise of power under the TRAI Act, keeping in mind the paramount interest of the consumer. Aggrieved by the High Court’s decision, the Cellular Operators Association, along with Unified Telecom Service Providers of India and 21 other telecom operators, filed an appeal with India’s Supreme Court. Interestingly, the Apex Court struck down this compensation policy for call drops because the regulation was unconstitutional and arbitrary, prompting a large sigh of relief from the telecom service providers.

Although the decision was a big relief for telecom service providers, the Apex Court only questioned the TRAI’s process of arriving at the call-drop decision. The court considered the regulation ultra vires (beyond the powers) of TRAI and did not deny the merits of call drop case. It also ruled that Parliament can make and enact a call-drop compensation rule. Consumers obviously have zero tolerance for failure in network services, which will likely prompt future legislation prescribing penalties on providers for deficient services.

“While I acknowledge the mobile operators for bringing connectivity to the nook and corner of the country, it is equally their responsibility to give good, satisfactory service,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, India minister for communications and information technology, as quoted in the Business Standard on May 12, 2016. “They must identify the gap and reinforce it through investment. Since July, they have added about 90,000 sites in the country, [with] 5,000 in Delhi. They need to do more, and the government will continue to insist upon the operators that they must fulfill this obligation.”

Since the call-drop decision, telecom service providers have acknowledged that they are accountable to consumers and other stakeholders, including the government, for the deficiencies in the network. Drawing an analogy from the call-drop case, legal issues may arise in the near future with commercial application of navigation satellites wherein a consumer would like to be compensated for deficiency in services. An independent regulatory body similar to TRAI would therefore be very much needed to regulate satellite navigation service providers to ensure service quality and a fair and transparent policy environment that promotes and facilitates fair competition.

Conclusions
India has recently completed its own regional satellite navigation system. ISRO is planning to procure, for the first time, additional spare satellites from industry.

However, India currently has no specific space activities legislation or laws or regulations for the provision of satellite navigation signals and services. While initial discussions on national space legislation have been initiated, no draft legislation has appeared thus far. A separate draft bill for Geospatial Information Regulation is currently under discussion. However, it would not apply to the governmental operation of the NAVIC system. The same is true as regards authorization procedures for the space activities of non-governmental entities to be established under future national space legislation.

As for other satellite navigation programs, government liability for signals and services, provided by satellite navigation systems, is a core legal issue that needs to be considered further, particularly for promotion of NAVIC downstream applications and services. Even though the Supreme Court’s ruling on call drops is final, the issue has not been fully resolved. Considering emerging commercial downstream services and applications based on NAVIC, the case must be seen as a beacon illuminating the complex legal issues arising from potential claims of users and third parties. In conjunction with the prospective National Space Act and the draft Geospatial Information Regulation bill, India should further reflect on the legal issues related to satellite navigation signals and services.

Additional Resources
1. Alarcity Foundation Ltd. v. T. N. Electricity Board, 1 CPR 194, 1993
2. Business Standard, May 12, 2016
3. Cellular Operators Association of India and Ors. v. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and Ors, AIR SC 2336, 2016
4. Deccan Chronicle, “How Kargil War with Pak Propelled India to Elite Space Club,” April 29, 2016 (available online here)
5. Deccan Herald, “First Indian Space Law Being Vetted by Military,” February 29, 2016
6. Geetha Jethani v. Airport Authority of India and Ors 2004 (3) CPJ 106 (NC)
7. Gujarat SEB Ltd. v. Zora Singh, 6 SCC 776, 2005
8. Hindustan Times, “It’s Unreasonable: SC Strikes Down Call Drop Penalty on Operators” May 11, 2016
9. Hobe, S., and B. Schmidt-Tedd, K. Schrogl, C. Verlag, Cologne, Commentary on Space Law, Volume 1, p.120, 2009
10. Indian Medical Association v. V. P. Shantha (1995) 6 SCC 651
11. Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam v. Bodan Ram, 2003 (4) CPJ 101(NC)
12. Kaul, R., and R. S Jakhu, “Regulation of Space Activities in India,” National Regulation of Space Activities, Springer Publication, p. 192, 2010
13. Lesley Jane Smith, “Legal Aspects of Satellite Navigation” in Handbook of Space Law, p.554 – 617
14. Parliament of India, Consumer Protection Act, 1986
15. Rao, R. V., and K. Abhijeet, Commercialization and Privatization of Space: Issues for National Space Legislation, Knowledge World Publishers, Annex 3, 2016
16. Telecom Consumers Protection (Ninth Amendment) Regulations, No. 301/2015-F&EA, 2015
17. The Hindu, “Industry to Build ISRO’s Two Spare Navigation Satellites,” September 2, 2016
18. The Times of India, “How Kargil Spurred India to Design Own GPS,” April 5, 2014 (available online here)

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