Mobile phones have made a bigger difference to the lives of more people, more quickly, than any previous communications technology. They have spread the fastest and proved the easiest and cheapest to adopt. It is estimated that around 3.6 billion people currently have mobile phones and 6 billion will have them in 2013. With the developed markets now saturated, a significant portion of this growth will be in developing countries; in the year to March 2009, an additional 128 million signed up in India, 89 million in China and 96 million across Africa.

Could this revolution in the developing world also help to bring land administration services within reach of billions of people currently without security of tender? Robin McLaren’s latest paper for the FIG Congress in Sydney April 2010 explores the opportunities provided by increasingly ubiquitous mobile phones to support the delivery of and participation in land administration services. Mobile phones will increasingly integrate GNSS positioning, digital cameras and video capabilities and provide citizens with the opportunity to get directly involved in the land registration and cadastral process. The mobile phone offers land professionals the opportunity to rethink how land administration services are designed and delivered.