[open-government] Data Exclusivity and Data Procurement

Fri Feb 10 15:01:21 UTC 2012

I hadn't heard of this concept before, although I knew it was happening, I
just did not know it was labeled - data exclusivity.  I first heard these
sorts of ideas when reading about biopiracy in relation to Vindana Shiva's
work on the Neem tree.  But that is not quite the same as this.  Also,
there is an argument in academia to allow researchers to keep publicly
funded produced research data for a set period of time to enable them to
produce and publish peer reviewed articles but I was unaware that data
exclusivity was the term for that.

I came across it first here -
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/sir-elton-john-we-must-end-the-greed-of-these-corporations-6699877.html

In the source of all wisdom and knowledge, wikipedia, I discovered that

Developed countries with innovative pharmaceutical industries (including
> the United States) *have sought data exclusivity provisions in Free Trade
> Agreements with their trading partners.*
>

In open data, we do not discuss government procurement practices much, for
instance, much of our radar and satellite sensors in Canada are built with
government funds, but once these technologies are transferred to the
engineering firms who built them, the Government enters data procurement
agreements to acquire those data for the exclusive use of the government.
The government is then precluded from sharing those data back with its
citizens.  This also happens quite a bit with transportation studies, as
these are done by engineering firms who own the rights to the data and not
the municipality who paid for the research.  Survey engineering results are
treated the same way.

Have any others considered data exclusivity and data procurement in your
work?

Glen, had you come across this in biology or in any of your science data
explorations?  This just released report on research data does not seem to
discuss it
http://rds-sdr.cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/docs/data_summit-sommet_donnees/Data_Summit_Report.pdf,
unless the concept is called something else.

International folks, is this something you have had conversations about?

Cheers
t

-- 
Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805

"Every epoch dreams the one that follows it's the dream form of the future,
not its reality" it is the "wish image of the collective".

Walter Benjamin, between 1927-1940, (
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/dossier_4/buck-morss.pdf
)
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