If it is...every county in the state of WA is doing land surveying. (So, I am guessing, "No.") Such facts must be determined by the process, however. Complaint, Board, ruling, law suit, judge...so I doubt it will ever be answered.?ÿ
So in practice, the answer is, "No. It is not land surveying."
Ohio went through this discussion nearly a decade ago. The Ohio Engineers and Surveyors Board issued an opinion in 2012 as guidance for county tax map/GIS operations.?ÿ There were several Ohio Professional Surveyors posting on this board prior to and after the opinion how counties were not complying with the laws cited.
If it's mapping for recreation, I don't see it being much of a problem.?ÿ It's when it's being used for something else, there will be problems.?ÿ
I mean, just look at the earlier thread about the property dispute in Bangor.?ÿ What do these people say when someone summons them to court about something like that??ÿ?ÿ Their first defense will be that they're not land surveyors.
I figured what the heck, no big deal.......
Then I went on to look at an address near one of my recent surveys......
They want $45 for this mapping service.?ÿ
It morphed from not much to a big deal at that point.
Here is the parcel using the local GIS:
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The property lines are approx 30' shifted to the NW from reality. I didn't pay the $45 to see, but I'm guessing this is what you would get.........
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This is a direct quote from the website (emphasis mine):
We created the first map for ourselves??to explore our new property.
We didn??t quite know where our property started or ended. The seller had given us a tour, but unfortunately, he couldn??t stick around and be our permanent tour guide. We wanted to find a trail where we could walk our beagle every day without infringing on neighbouring properties. So, we created a georeferenced map of our property lines that we uploaded to our phones.
We added our trails to the map using our phone??s GPS. With this addition, we not only confirmed which trails were ours but we also gained a greater understanding of our property. We thought the trails the seller showed us covered the majority of the property, but they only covered 1/3 of the property on the map!
We set out again with the map to explore the full extent of the property. After a few hours, we discovered some neat property features (lookouts, rock outcroppings, potential camping spots) and the 4 original survey pins that the previous owner hadn??t found in the 20 years he owned the place.
We sent our map to friends to share what we had discovered. Several friends requested similar maps for properties they owned or were considering purchasing. We want to continue helping people explore and understand their properties. While our maps do not replace a professional survey, they can be a guide to survey pins, a useful planning tool, a showcase for property features, or simply a practical way to stay within the lines.
The way they discuss their product is problematic, to say the least, because they are representing it as something more than what you would get from the county/province GIS parcels.
Despite the extremely weak CYA disclaimer that it is not a survey, the above language essentially tells the customer that they can rely upon it in the same way as a survey.
Don't know if it's technically considered surveying yet, but as soon as someone uses their cell phone to drop a fence somewhere other than the boundary line, or use this "useful planning tool" to design and build a structure that violates setbacks (or even falls on adjacent property), they may attract some unwanted scrutiny from a board.
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What board? Does yours or mine even have jurisdiction over work done in Canada? Since it isn't on the ground, and is virtual in nature, could they be seen to even be offering a service in the USA? So many questions...and do they collect sales tax??ÿ
Things get complicated when the internet knows no borders.
The real question is whether this is surveying in CANADA.
Has anyone tried their services? I would like to see what you get, and how they produce it.
Whether they are going too far or not depends on the details. Either way, they are going to eventually get into some trouble without a much stronger and prominent disclaimer.?ÿ
The question is whether it is surveying in the jurisdiction they produce the map in. States and Provinces?ÿ have the power to regulate professional practice within there borders irregardless of where the practitioner resides.?ÿ
Of course there would be difficulties in collecting a monetary fine across the border if a scofflaw decides not to cooperate.
I would also like to see what product they provide and what their claims are.?ÿ I don't see much of a difference between this and an app like Onx or Huntstand...I'm not a software engineer by any means but i think they just buy up county by county tax map data and publish it...I've used OnX plenty hunting out west for approximate public land boundaries and topo information.
The hard part is explaining to clients and even friends that GIS isn't always accurate or correct...I'd even argue that similar GIS programs and apps have made it harder to deal with "those" clients/owners since I started surveying.?ÿ
Everyone is an expert now...it used to be the occasional client or adjacent owner that would say
"Well that's not where my paw told me it was..."
Now its "Well that's not what my App shows..."
Kind of my point. Being right doesn't always mean you win.
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Might be easier to stem the flow of the tides.
Their website indicates that they are offering services in Canada and the USA.
The problem I see here is that they do not have forceful enough statement about exactly what their service can and should be used for. It would be a problem for them to have such a statement, because the vast majority of the populace can get what they offer for free with either 10 minutes of research or a couple hours with an open-source GIS program.
Again, it may not be land surveying, but they are approaching "the defining and locating of corners, lines, boundaries, and monuments of land after they have been established" as defined in RCW 18.43.020, and appear to be encouraging their customers to rely upon their product in a similar way as a survey. Whether a line is defined digitally on a phone or by line stakes won't make much difference when a landowner relies upon it because they paid someone to define it for them.
I couldn't care less if someone uses this service, and good for them if they can make it profitable. I wasn't advocating for shutting them down, nor would I go running to the board if they were operating in my area.
It's only what can already be downloaded on a smart phone for free. You don't need an app, all you need to be able to do is navigate to an existing web site and open it.?ÿ
That they charge $45 a shot for free info seems wrong somehow.
And there is that little issue of these GIS lines often being drastically off.?ÿ
Good, bring it on. I charge more to fix things than show things.?ÿ
And there is that little issue of these GIS lines often being drastically off.
This
I think it is a reasonable question, but I dont think our current laws have any way to effectively deal with this. I personally dont have an issue with the service, but I think it does pose a real danger to the people that use it. Not a health and safety danger, but certainly a likelihood that they will think the property line is in a different spot than it actually is.
Yes, that is the real hammer. Someone uses the service and it costs them $$$...then they might sue the company.
Just takes someone willing to part with the $45. My advice is to pick a known messy GIS area and see if they have cleaned it up.?ÿ
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The service should probably be allowed, but only with appropriate disclaimer that it does not represent official surveys, and with reasonable claims for uncertainty values.
I wonder how many "Realtors" read the "quick start guide" and now consider themselves Surveyors. ?????ÿ
