Opening Data to the Public

Managing Public Sector Information, London, March 1st 2011

Dr Rufus Pollock

Licensed under cc-by v3.0 (any jurisdiction)

Open Knowledge Foundation Shuttleworth Foundation
sumer

Sumer, Mesopotamia, 5000 years ago

census

The UK Census (1801)

hollerith

The Hollerith Tabulator (US 1890 Census)

ibm

An IBM (1960s)

Today, Once Again, We Find Ourselves in the Midst of a Revolution

Policy Innovation

Driven by
Necessity (Info Glut)
and
Possibility (Info Tech)

Government's Have Been Innovating on Policy

Recent Policy I

" .. a government that saves money instead of wasting it; that trusts people who work in our public services, instead of dictating to them; and one that gives power away to people instead of taking it from them.

...

... we're going to rip off that cloak of secrecy and extend transparency as far and as wide as possible. By bringing information out into the open, you'll be able to hold government and public services to account. You'll be able to see how your taxes are being spent. Judge standards in your local schools and hospitals. Find out just how effective the police are at fighting crime in your community."

Recent Policy II

"Companies that use technology to interact with their users are positioning themselves for the future, and government must do likewise. Mygov marks the end of the one-size-fits-all, man-from-the-ministry-knows-best approach to public services.

...

And rather than civil servants being the sole authors and editors, we will unleash data and content to the community to turn into applications that meet genuine needs. This does not require large-scale government IT Infrastructure; the 'open source' technology that will make it happen is freely available. All that is required is the will and willingness of the centre to give up control."

And Not Just the UK!

US, New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Norway, London, Vancouver, ...

What does Open Mean?

Open = Freedom for Anyone to Use / Re-use / Redistribute

Anyone means Anyone!

http://opendefinition.org/

What Data?

Transport, Geodata, Statistics, Electoral-Legal ...

Key point: Non-Personal Data!

(E.g. Train times, station locations, spending breakdowns, national laws ...)

Open Data: Why?

The Holy Trinity:
Innovation, Efficiency, Transparency

AKA: Jobs and Growth, Community and Governance

£5 Billion UK, €27 billion for EU

Information is Special: Non-Rivalrous

Very cheaply copied ~ zero cost

Giving me a 'copy' of your car is a problem, giving me a copy of your data isn't

The Many Minds Principle

The Best Thing to do With Your Data will be Thought of by Someone Else

Fixing is Faster with Open Data
(And You Don't Repeat Yourself)

To many eyes all bugs are shallow

One department can find and use another's data

Scaling
(Closed Data Doesn't Scale!)

Woven Ball Broken Humpty
We're Weaving Data Together To Scale We Need to Componentize But We Need to Put Humpty-Dumpty Together Again - Not Possible if Closed

Transparency and Efficiency

Where Does My Money Go

Where Does My Money Go?

Going About It

(And Some Possible Issues)

Deal with Licensing

It's boring - but without it nothing else works ...

http://www.opendatacommons.org/
Legal Solutions for Open Data

Get a Catalogue

ckan.net data.gov.uk
offenedaten.de datadotgc.ca

Issues: Foregone Revenue

Mostly PSI isn't sold.

Where it is, usually can charge 'write-side'

Costs involved are relatively very small

Issues: Preparation Costs

One-off setup, and low ongoing.

KISS: Keep It Simple!

Don't worry (too much) about e.g. formats, schemas etc

Issues: Control and Misuse

Data has always been misused.

Government can still play a role in interpretation.

As a democratic society we must trust in informed public discourse

Conclusion

Enables a Read/Write Society

read/write society

Open data means anyone can access, analyse and contribute. No longer confined to passive consumption we can 'write' back - adding, adapting, and updating.

Unlocking a Vast Potential for
Innovation in Products and Services

The Googles of the Future

Very Different Paradigm:
Government as a Platform

Providing Data to Build On - Not Just Information to Access or Services to Use

Thank-You

Rufus Pollock
rufus.pollock [at] okfn [dot] org
http://www.rufuspollock.org/about/

Credits

Images

lego.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/265899811/
humpty_dumpty.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/298669543/
woven_ball.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/exfordy/387876530/sizes/s/
sim_city_airport.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42183741@N05/3890767674/in/photostream/
thomas_jefferson.jpg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Peale-Thomas_Jefferson.jpg
stick_figure_male.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/15036
stick_figure_female.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/15040
city_icon.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/20145
city_icon.png: http://www.openclipart.org/detail/20145
sumer-ur-pot.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seriykotik/122518602/
hollerith-tabulator.gif: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/census-tabulator.html (orig from IBM)
ibm-machine-city-hall.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/2898506631/
census-1801-example.jpg: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~alan/family/images/census/1801_example.jpg
itoworld-openstreetmap-2009.jpg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterito/3054501076/