In September 1996, the Province of New Brunswick, Canada became the first jurisdiction in the world to offer World Wide Web-based access to complete and integrated online property mapping, ownership and assessment information covering an entire province or state.  Service New Brunswick’s Real Property Information Server (RPIS) was originally developed by Caris/Universal Systems Ltd. (Caris) in conjunction with the University of New Brunswick Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering and with substantial input from Service New Brunswick (SNB) staff.  The Caris Internet Server technology on which it was based was recognized, at the time, to be “…the first commercial Internet/mapping GIS” platform.

The paper examines the twenty-year evolution of land information infrastructure refinement in New Brunswick since that time, beginning with the early vision of linking land information with environmental and resource-based information to support improved decision-making.  Since 1996, policy and operational issues encountered by SNB included ones related to charging for data, use of geospatial data in eGovernment and eGovernance, data custodianship and incremental updating, involvement of the private sector, and the contrasting “push-pull” between open data initiatives and personal data privacy concerns – issues also faced by other jurisdictions across North America, Europe and Australasia over the same period.

After discussing early initiatives, challenges and issues mentioned above, the paper then tracks and analyzes the changes in Web-based services offered since 1996 in response to a widening and more sophisticated customer base, shifts in government/business relationships, and changes in technologies for data collection, management and communication.  The paper concludes with a discussion of current key information initiatives of Service New Brunswick (SNB) and how they pertain to the fulfilment of the original vision.