Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

Licensing Standard Terms and Conditions

Related pages

• Traffic Cameras
• Licence Application Process
• Crown Copyright
• Fees and Charges
• Model Licences
• Application Form for "Still Images" Quality Images
• Application Form for Live Video Images
• Image Licensing Complaints Procedure
• Frequently Asked Questions

Copyright Status of Traffic Images and Licensing

The images from the Agency's traffic cameras are Crown Copyright.  They are supplied for re-use under Licence with the permission of the Agency acting on behalf of the Secretary of State under delegated licensing authority from the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The duration of the Licence will depend on the purpose of re-use being licensed.  The terms of the Licence are specific to the permitted use (see section on Permitted Use below).  The Licence shall not provide the Licensee with an exclusive right to re-use the images.  Licensees are required to bind all users of the images it receives to the terms set out in the Licence.  Licence terms and conditions are also binding on any service(s) that are developed by the Licensee using the images.  Licensees are required to credit the Crown Copyright status of the published images (see also Corporate Branding below).

Purpose of Re-Use and Eligible Licensees

The Secretary of State distributes the images to eligible third parties whose functions and/or planned end use of the images will:

• complement the Highways Agency's remit in operating, maintaining and improving the trunk road and motorway network in England, and/or
• help to deliver the Highways Agency's core business aims of safer roads, more reliable journeys and better informed travellers..

Eligible third parties are therefore those who need or intend to re-use the images for the purposes of:

• providing traffic information services to the public to enable better journey planning (live video images and still images based traffic information service developers and providers)¹ ; or
• tactical control of the operation of the trunk road and motorway network in England (Highways Agency operational staff, contractors, agents, and network partners such as the police, providers of emergency services ); or
• cross-border cooperation between the UK's road networks (Road Authorities in England and the devolved administrations, operators of transport infrastructures such as ports, airports and private road networks and operators of other infrastructures which generate high volumes of traffic).

For reasons of road safety the Agency does not licence re-use of the images for dedicated in-car traffic information services.  It is the Government's policy to prevent driver distraction and the use of mobile phones and other handheld devices whilst driving. This is clearly demonstrated in:

• the Road Safety Act 2006 which makes the use of handheld devices whilst driving an endorsable offence
• the Highway Code Rules 149 and 150 on Mobile Phones and In-Vehicle Technology
• the Government's THINK! Mobile campaign launched on 1 February 2008

Source of Traffic Images

Images are sourced from the Agency's traffic management cameras on the trunk road and motorway network in England.  Images which may be captured from any other cameras on the network - including enforcement cameras or cameras to which Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology or other data recognition technology is attached - are not distributed to Licensees or the public.

Data Protection

The Secretary of State is the Data Controller with respect to his and his staffs' and agents' use of the images.  Licensees and third party users of the images are Data Controllers with respect to their own use of the images and are required to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and all subsequent relevant legislation or provisions.

Human Rights

The Secretary of State's distribution and licensing of the re-use of traffic images is compliant with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, 1950 - the right to respect for private and family life.  Licensees are deemed to be public authorities as defined in the Human Rights Act 1998 and are required to comply with Article 8 of the Act, since the Secretary of State's objective in distributing the images and licensing them for re-use is of "public significance".

Access to Government Information

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to the Highways Agency in its capacity as a public authority.  Licensees are deemed to be public authorities as defined in the Act since the permitted use of the images has a "public nature"; and are required to comply with its provisions if it receives an access request under the Act.   Access requests should be referred to the Agency and are only relevant if they are for copies of retained still or recorded images.  Requests for access to the real-time video stream for re-use fall outside of the Act and are subject to licensing.  Such requests must be referred to the Secretary of State's designated officer.  The Licence provides contact details.

Permitted Use

The Licensee shall only re-use the images for the purposes specified in its Licence and is permitted only to distribute the images to the public and those organisations named in the Licence via the service(s) and platform(s) named in the Licence.

Traffic Information Service Providers Editorial Control

Licensees licensed to provide traffic information services to the public shall control the images in accordance with the terms of a Statement of Editorial Control Policy which forms an Appendix to their Licence. This shall set out the:

• editorial control procedures that the Licensee shall use its best endeavours to ensure that to the best of its knowledge and belief the:
  • traffic images published are accurate, appropriate, timely and up to date; and
  • images relate purely to traffic conditions and the traffic effects of incidents; and
  • that they are compliant with all legal requirements, do not offend public decency, invade personal privacy or cause trauma or hinder good and proper network operations or policing.

In this respect the Licensee shall take all reasonable steps to ensure compliance with all legal requirements and prevent the distribution of unsuitable images, including reviewing the images to be published or broadcast prior to their transmission. The Licensee shall also ensure that the images are refreshed in compliance with the refresh rates specified in the Licence.

Where images may be viewed via a Licensee's website or via any of the third party websites named in the Licence on handheld devices the Licensee shall place a statement on entry to or whilst viewing the service(s) stating "do not use this service or view traffic images whilst driving" with a link to an Information Page informing users that in law, a person may be regarded as driving a vehicle whilst the engine is running and the vehicle is stationary.

Dealing

The Licence is personal to the Licensee. The Licensee may not assign, charge, mortgage, sub-contract or otherwise dispose of the Licence or any part of the Licence or its obligations under the Licence.

The Licensee shall not provide access to the images to any third party without the prior written permission of the Secretary of State other than as specified in the Licence.  If the Secretary of State grants permission the third party and its agreed use and distribution platforms will be logged in a Schedule to Appendix A of the Licensee's Licence.

The Licensee shall not sell the images to any third party or charge a fee for the supply of images to a third party except as specified in the Licence.

The Licensee shall refer to the Secretary of State all requests received from third parties for permission to take the images from any of the Licensees' licensed services, to re-use on the third parties' services. If the Secretary of State agrees the third party request the third party and its agreed use and distribution platforms will be logged in a Schedule to Appendix A of the Licensee's Licence.

Indemnity

Licensees shall indemnify the Secretary of State against all losses actions claims costs damages, demands, expenses and proceedings whatsoever incurred by or made against the Secretary of State that may arise as a direct consequence of the Licensees' connection to the Agency's telecommunications system or its re-use of the images in its service(s).

Fees and Charges for the Provision of the Images

The Agency's policy is to provide the images to Licensees for use and re-use without levying a fee for this service but it reserves the right to levy a fee in the future in accordance with Government policy and guidelines. Licensees are required to meet the marginal direct costs incurred by the Agency in providing a connection to the Agency's telecommunications system and facilitating access to the images. Licensees shall therefore pay all costs related to the provision of a Licence as well as the provision, maintenance, rental and use of equipment, electronic and other links required to effect this transmission.

Costs of Service(s) Development

Licensees of traffic information service(s) shall develop their service(s) at their own expense.

Corporate Branding of the Images and Acknowledgement of the Highways Agency

The Agency's policy on corporate branding requires the Agency's logo and branding to be included as part of all Agency owned and sponsored projects. Licensees of traffic information services shall be required to acknowledge the Agency's licensing of the images and the Crown Copyright status of the images by placing the Crown Copyright logo and an agreed credit to the Highways Agency alongside the images - which the Secretary of State shall from time to time agree and of a size that is legible at all times. All broadcast scripts of traffic information in traffic information service(s) which are based in whole or part on the Licensee's use of the images shall include an agreed reference, to be broadcast at an agreed frequency, to the source of the information as being partly or wholly derived from Highway's Agency's traffic management cameras.

Infrastructure, Camera Sites, Control and Access Priority

The Secretary of State reserves the right to substitute or replace existing cameras and telecommunications network with new technology, or to run such technology in tandem with its existing infrastructure.

Camera sites provided to Licensees may be changed at any time without notice. Traffic Information Licensees shall have no operational control over the cameras. Licensees shall not have exclusive use of any camera.  The Secretary of State and the police service have priority use of the cameras.  Decisions on priority of use by Licensees are made by the Secretary of State. As a general guide there are three levels of priority use according to the Licensee's licensed purpose of re-use:

• Level 1: the Highways Agency's Operational Partners for tactical control of the operation of the trunk road and motorway network in England
• Level 2: the Highways Agency's Operational Partners for cross-border cooperation between the UK's road networks
• Level 3: traffic information service providers providing traffic information services to the public to enable better journey planning¹ 

Security of the Agency's National Telecommunications System (NRTS)

The Licensee shall put in place controls to ensure that the security, reliability, performance, accuracy and completeness of the HA's telecommunications and data is not compromised; and shall maintain such security measures as may from time to time reasonably be specified by the Secretary of State to prevent unauthorized access to the HA's telecommunications system.

Service Levels

The provision of the images for re-use is made without any warranties or guarantees of any kind of service level, or that access to the images will be uninterrupted or free from technical errors. Provision of images of a scene or from specific cameras may be suspended if the Secretary of State or the Police Service consider that provision of the images is not in the interests of operational requirements, the good and proper public interest, or good and proper policing.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Licensees shall be required to monitor their use of the images and the use of their licensed service(s) and to collect data and undertake customer research and provide the results to the Agency together with annual written reports in order:

• to test and evaluate the performance of the technology and systems and their interface with the Licensee's technology and systems;
• that where the images are re-used in traffic information services:
  • the risks involved in publishing the images on the Licensee's broadcast service and/or website with minimum editorial control can be quantified;
  • risk mitigation strategies may be developed in response to the risks identified;
  • the impact on the Licensee's traffic news broadcasts and/or websites of the images being unavailable to the Licensee may be assessed;
  • the value of distributing the images to the public in terms of the Licensee's commercial objectives may be assessed;
  • the professional and market interest in having access to the images may be assessed;
  • the Agency may assess the value of distributing the images to the public as a contribution to better journey planning; and to evaluate the impact of any editing procedures which deny access to the images.
• that where the images are re-used for tactical control of the network or cross-border cooperation the Highways Agency may assess the professional value of the images.

Termination of Licence

The Licence shall terminate at the end of the Licence period unless the parties mutually agree otherwise.

The Parties may suspend or terminate the Licence if in their reasonable opinion they deem it necessary, subject to specific conditions detailed in the Licence and the Licensee having provided to the Secretary of State the data and written reports required for monitoring and evaluation of the service(s).

The Secretary of State may terminate the Licence subject to seven days written notice if the Licensee becomes bankrupt or goes into liquidation or if a receiver is appointed to the Licensee.

Misuse

Detected abuse or misuse of the Agency's traffic camera images could result in the suspension of access to the Agency's traffic management cameras. 

¹The images from the traffic cameras complement and supplement the Agency's other sources of traffic information available to the public: HAIL: Tel: 08700-660-115 and Traffic England: http://www.highways.gov.uk/trafficinfo/.