AI-Powered Discovery of Geospatial Web Services

Planning & Decision-making · Research & Development

What it collects

Operational data

Anonymized data

Publicly available Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), Web Map Tile Service (WMTS), and Esri REST service endpoints accessed over the Internet. These are infrastructure-level data services, not personal data.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Run by: Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)
Where: No fixed location
Kept: Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with: Accountable organization

What it is for

Planning & Decision-making

Research & Development

This system uses machine learning to automatically find and catalogue publicly available geospatial web services — such as maps and data feeds — across the .ca internet domain and Arctic region. It helps Natural Resources Canada understand which standards-based geospatial services exist as part of Canada's national geospatial data infrastructure. The system is operated by a third-party vendor (Spatineo) on behalf of the department. Users are generally not informed that this AI system is in operation.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Operational data

Anonymized data

Publicly available Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), Web Map Tile Service (WMTS), and Esri REST service endpoints accessed over the Internet. These are infrastructure-level data services, not personal data.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Processing

Classification & Prediction

ML/AI classification model that determines whether a discovered web endpoint is a standards-based geospatial service (WMS, WFS, WMTS, Esri REST) and whether it falls within the .ca domain or Arctic geographic scope.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

What it does

Deciding (Analytical AI)

Autonomous

Automatically classifies and filters discovered web endpoints to identify those that are standards-based geospatial services (WMS, WFS, WMTS, Esri REST) within the .ca domain and Arctic scope, without human review of each classification.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Sensing (Perceptive AI)

Autonomous

Crawls and reads publicly accessible web service endpoints over the Internet to detect signals indicating they are geospatial standards-based services, structuring raw web responses into identifiable service records.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Outputs

Operational data

Anonymized data

A catalogue of identified standards-based geospatial web services available within the .ca domain and Arctic region, representing an inventory of CGDI-relevant and ArcticSDI-relevant services. No personal data is produced.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Run by

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)

Federal department responsible for deploying and overseeing this AI system, which helps identify standards-based geospatial web services as part of the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI).

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Built by

Spatineo

Third-party vendor that developed and supplies the ML/AI web harvesting system used to identify geospatial web services for the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization

The catalogue of identified geospatial web services is available to Natural Resources Canada and, through the CGDI mandate, to both employees and members of the public.

Government of Canada AI Register — entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001

Stored

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data: Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data: Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data: The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides: This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes: This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous: This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the Helpful Places, not the vendor.

Your rights

Right to Be Informed of AI UseThe register indicates that AI use is not disclosed to users of this system. Members of the public whose web services are crawled by this system are not currently informed that an AI system is in operation. Individuals wishing to inquire may contact Natural Resources Canada.
Right to Algorithmic TransparencyA high-level description of this system is published in the Government of Canada Algorithmic Impact Assessment Register (entry 2526-NRCan-RNCan-001), accessible at open.canada.ca. This disclosure explains the general function of the ML/AI system but does not detail the specific model logic.

Risks and safeguards

No risks or safeguards have been published for this system yet.