Natural, humanitarian and industrial disasters are serious threats to life. Whether earthquakes, hurricanes, aircraft crashes, epidemics or oil spills, in the case of major disasters, a quick and efficient recovery of satellite imagery of affected areas is of the essence. For example, under the International Space and Disaster Charter, space agencies and operators of earth observation missions around the world are committed to collaborate to provide fast access to satellite data for rescue and relief purposes. In a jurisdiction that has regulation for remote sensing or telecom, even a commercial operator of satellites services can be required to make its imagery or communication services publicly available or taken over by governmental organisations (Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States, Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) in the European Union and International Charter on Space and Major Disasters). At the same time, the use of geospatial data beyond emergency scenarios is also rapidly developing. Location and other types of geo-information are being collected, analysed and used for governmental, private and commercial purposes, raising a broad range of legal and ethical issues. Conceivable topics include: - earth observation and major disasters: international framework for collaboration; - open data and earth observation: universal access to satellite data? - collection, processing, distribution and utilisation of geospatial data; - satellite and information technologies: commercial imaging satellites, satellite navigation devices, mobile phones, web mapping services, radio frequency identification, geographic information systems and so on; - data ownership – legal and ethical issues; - confidentiality/privacy issues; and - national security, criminal prosecution and other governmental uses of data – legal issues.