Open Data: a mine of information?

 

What about this for a notion. Transform the business of running the country from being a closed, tightly controlled activity into an open process that gives citizens access to information that affects them and which could also earn some of them a pound or two.

 

That's the promise of Open Data - a bold move to put public sector information into the public domain with the aim of improving efficiency, making the workings of government much more transparent and creating new businesses based on Terabytes of previously unused data.

 

The government has already taken the first steps to freeing up data as a way to make real that promise. Some 5,400 datasets are already available on data.gov and web services such as police.uk, NHS Choices, MashMyGov and MySociety have piled in with novel services based on some of this data.

 

Announcements about government agencies prepared to lift the veil on their crown jewels have been coming thick and fast. Patients’ NHS records and other NHS data will be shared with healthcare companies; the Met Office will release a large proportion of the public weather service forecast and real-time observations; while the Department for Transport (DfT) will work with Network Rail and the transport industry to make real-time train running data available.

 

To speed things up, the Coalition has announced that it will create three dedicated new organisations – the Open Data Institute, the Data Strategy Board and the Public Data Group - to bring about the administrative, technical and cultural changes that will be required.

 

The Open Data Institute, headed by Professor Nigel Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee, is the public face of the revolution. It will act as a business incubator, think tank and training centre for commercial companies.

 

The Public Data Group represents four organisations that generate large amounts of important public data – the Met Office, Ordnance Survey, the Land Registry and Companies House. The Government expects the Data Strategy Board will work with these organisations to maximise the value of their data, working out what information will be made available and which of it will be free.

 

There is a lot of money at stake: UK public data could already be worth £16bn per year, according to the Cabinet Office. The Government is not alone in emphasising the economic importance of open data. Its use could be a critical factor in determining the success or failure of the UK’s efforts to grow its economy, according to Deloitte. The business advisory firm argues in a recent report called Unlocking Growth: How open data creates new opportunities for the UK that the big insights to be gained from freer access to public data could capture the imagination of citizens and entrepreneurs and reinvigorate a stuttering economy.

 

“Government leaders have an opportunity to combine the resourcefulness of online citizens and entrepreneurs with the power of factual data to more effectively achieve their mission,” says Costi Perricos, public sector analytics leader at Deloitte.

 

“What’s more, businesses have the opportunity to apply open data to create better and more cost-effective commercial services – something that can only be a good thing given today’s difficult economic conditions.”

 

So far, those governments that have ventured into open data have contented themselves with cataloguing raw data, aggregating it into a single platform and encouraging users to develop unusual applications with the data. Many administrations still make data available in hard copy form or analogue formats such as microfiche and only release it when asked to. They have yet to adopt the latest technology or tap into social media.

 

However, there is potential for using mashups, crowdsourcing and other techniques to transform data into meaningful knowledge – the sort of ‘big insights’ that will help to unlock growth, claims Delotitte.

 

The move to open data has big implications for those who work in the public service. Deloitte sees them as becoming social media knowledge workers, operating in a more collaborative style with citizens and businesses.

 

The looser arrangements will inevitably raise questions of who is legally responsible for data whose misuse could have damaging consequences. Government will also have to iron out protocols to protect the privacy of those whose confidential details may be contained in open data: privacy is a big issue in healthcare, but also in the police and armed services.

 

“Accountability is not the same as liability, and the Government must ensure that adequate thought is given to potential liabilities that arise from making data publically available,” says Deloitte’s Perricos. “Privacy issues, too, pose a significant and serious challenge, especially if anonymity of citizens in one data set can be threatened by inferences made after publishing other data.”

 

So there remain challenges to making that vision we started with a reality. But who can really doubt we have finally started a journey to make it some kind of a reality?