External Data/Third Party Sources Policy

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This wiki topic serves as the central authority on the incorporation of external or third-party data into the Waze map for Australia and its jurisdictions. This policy needs to be read in whole.

General Policy

Usage of any external copyrighted source of information, in order to add information to the Waze database or maps, is not allowed. External copyright information includes any online or printed map information that is not provided by Waze through the Waze Map Editor interface.

With the acquisition of Waze by Google, changes have been made to the Waze Map Editor to include updated aerial and street view images from Google. These are considered internal sources and completely acceptable to be used in creating map information for Waze. Google’s terms of use restricts use of their map information to specific conditions and Waze has the proper licensing to use what you see inside the Waze Map Editor, but nothing else. For example, we are allowed to use Street View within Waze’s editor, but we are not allowed to go to Google Maps and use that Street View.

This is to be read in conjunction with the Waze Terms of Service at https://www.waze.com/legal/tos, which includes the Waze Copyright policy at https://www.waze.com/en-GB/legal/copyright.

Exceptions

After careful vetting and approval through the Waze Community Managers and legal team, Australia’s country management has been able to secure exceptions to the general policy for the use of the following data sources to be used, with attribution, under a creative commons licence. Such attribution appears at https://www.waze.com/legal/notices and in the Waze app under Settings > About.

State Attribution
ACT ACT Government GeoHub, ACTGOV Road Centrelines. licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
Australian Capital Territory, ACT Map, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
NSW The NSW Base Map web service, Spatial Services, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence, which includes disclaimers of warranties.
NT Natural Resource Maps, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
SA South Australian Government Data Directory, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
TAS National or State Highway and Arterial Roads plus Feeder Roads plus Local plus Access Roads plus VTs, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence.
VIC MapShareVic by Victoria State Government, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, which includes disclaimers of warranties.
WA OpenData/RoadAssets Data Portal, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
QLD Queensland Globe, under the Queensland Government site, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.
Queensland Government Guide to Queensland Roads, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. This document is no longer published but may still be available
All Administrative Boundaries ©Geoscape Australia licensed by the Commonwealth of Australia under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0).

In addition, publicly available data on road closures, particularly in the interest of public safety, can be used per written communication from Waze Community Managers in February 2019 (see discussion page).

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Please see the How To Use Third Party Data Sources topic for additional information on each source.

Policy Violations

Violations put the Waze maps in danger of being forced to revert all changes done to the map in your area. If any user were to do such a thing, it would taint all the work that person did on the maps and Waze would need to reverse all those edits. There could also be other adverse effects.

Waze has already had to remove all the maps for Chile, and other South American countries, because the source of the map data was not properly licensed (not the result of any Waze action).

Waze may deny or cancel any individual use of the Website, or terminate your user account, if Waze determines, in its sole discretion, that you are a repeat infringer. A repeat infringer is a user who has been notified of infringing activity more than once or a user that his or her uploaded material was removed from the Website more than once. Waze may decide, at its sole discretion, that a sufficient reason exists for the immediate termination of your account for any reason, at any time. In these cases Waze may terminate your account immediately. Waze may notify you that it canceled your account by sending a message to the e-mail address that you provided during the registration process. Such notification will come into effect immediately. [1]


  1. https://www.waze.com/legal/copyright ↩︎