Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) established during the past two decades “unlocked” heterogeneous geospatial datasets. The European Union INSPIRE Directive laid down the foundation of a pan-European SDI where thousands of public sector data providers make their data, including sensor observations, available for cross-border and cross-domain reuse. At the same time, SDIs should inevitably adopt new technology and standards to remain fit for purpose and address in the best possible way the needs of different stakeholders (government, businesses and citizens). Some of the recurring technical requirements raised by SDI stakeholders include: (i) the need for adoption of RESTful architectures; together with (ii) alternative (to GML) data encodings, such as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and binary exchange formats; and (iii) adoption of asynchronous publish–subscribe-based messaging protocols. The newly established OGC standard SensorThings API is particularly interesting to investigate for INSPIRE, as it addresses together all three topics. In this manuscript, we provide our synthesised perspective on the necessary steps for the OGC SensorThings API standard to be considered as a solution that meets the legal obligations stemming out of the INSPIRE Directive. We share our perspective on what should be done concerning: (i) data encoding; and (ii) the use of SensorThings API as a download service.

The current procedure for the reporting of cholera cases in Uganda contains many manual steps across several levels of the health infrastructure. Because of this there is a large chance of errors in the information flow, possibly delaying the signalling of an outbreak. The lack of accurate and complete data also hinders research into the spread of cholera. To improve the cholera reporting an application called Dira (Disease Incidence Reporting Application) has been developed for mobile devices, that allows the field registration of patients to be done quickly, easily and accurately. By entering the data directly on an electronic device there is no longer the need for separate digitization steps. By transferring case data directly from the hand-held device to a central server at the Ugandan Ministry of Health, the reliability of the data can be increased and the time to launch a response to an outbreak can be decreased.