OMB Circular A-16 - Circular Policy

Circular Policy

Any agency that collects, produces, acquires, maintains, distributes, uses, or preserves any form of spatial data either directly or indirectly with any other agency or organization must follow the policies set forth by the circular.

The following exemplary list is representative of the kinds of systems to which the circular applies:

• the National Mapping Program
• the National Spatial Reference System
• the National Geologic Mapping Program
• the National Wetlands Inventory
• the National Cooperative Soil Survey Program
• the National Public Land Survey System
• Geographic Coordinate Database
• the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) nautical charting and nautical data collection and information programs
• the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) inland waterway charting program
• the Offshore Minerals Program
• the NASA's Earth Science Enterprise
• the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Flood Plain Mapping program and other federal activities that involve national surveying, mapping, remote sensing, spatially referenced statistical data
• Global Positioning System (GPS)

There are few exemptions to adherence to the policy described in the circular:

• spatial data related to tribal governments not paid for with federal funds
• classified national-security related activities of the Department of Defense (DOD), unless declassified by Executive Order 12951 (under direction of the Secretary of Defense)
• those activities of the Department of Energy under determination of the Secretary of Energy
• intelligence spatial data activities, under determination of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency