A basic requirement for advancing research is free and unrestricted international sharing of high-quality, long-term, and standardized data and information products. The International Science Council (ISC) endorses as a general policy the fundamental principal of full and open exchange of data and information for scientific and educational purposes.

All data submitted to GTN-G are considered public domain for non-commercial use and are made digitally available (near-real time) through the operational services at no cost. GTN-G data are open access under the requirement of correct citation (see database version), which corresponds to a CC BY 4.0 license by Creative Commons. The use of data and information from GTN-G requires acknowledgement of the GTN-G operational body (WGMS, NSIDC, GLIMS) and/or the original investigators and sponsoring agencies according to the available meta-information.

The data may be subject to errors and inaccuracies. GTN-G, therefore, strongly recommends performing data quality checks and, in cases of ambiguities, contacting the corresponding operational body as well as the investigators and sponsoring agencies of the data.