Public Data is a Public Good

Tim Berners-Lee und Nigel Shadbolt argumentieren in der britischen Times für Offene Schnittstellen und Zugang zu Öffentlichen Daten im Rahmen von Open-Government-Initiativen: Put in your postcode, out comes the data.

Government data is a valuable resource that we have already paid for. We are not talking about personal data but data that tells us, for example, about the amount and type of traffic on our roads, where the accidents are, how much is spent on areas where these accidents occur. This is data that has already been collected and paid for by the taxpayer, and the internet allows it to be distributed much more cheaply than before. Governments can unlock its value by simply letting people use it. This is beginning to happen in a number of countries, notably in the US under the Obama Administration, and in June Gordon Brown asked us to advise the Government on how to make rapid progress here. In our work as government information advisers we are laying out the benefits of publishing non-personal public data for reuse, in formats that computers can “read” and without restrictive licences. Making this happen does not require a huge new IT project or complicated technology. We just need to change the culture of Whitehall and town halls so that data is seen as public property. At present too much is hidden from public view, compartmentalised into silos and difficult to process.

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