[okfn-za] [HacksHackers Cape Town] Restrictive licences on government websites

Thu Apr 4 21:26:55 UTC 2013

Hi all,
As somebody who use to work in Govt IT I also know that it is an active
process of maintaining boundaries to data access not only for external
people but also within & between internal Govt divisions. This paradigm not
only adds transactional costs to Govt services but also leads to added risk
to Govt as an entity but also risk to society.

E.g. Deeds office data standards (or lack thereof) leads to massive
transactional costs with ripple effects on multiple economic value chains.

It comes down to architecture (designing for open data access), standards &
data governance policies - but mostly we need a new mindset about data
"ownership" and empathy with citizens who have a legitimate right to data
access.

Legal challenge is 1 path but how bout using market forces? I.e I'm
thinking of BRICS & the idea of closer integration between
Brazil-Russia-India-China-SA can be supported by open Govt data standards.
The same applies to our Southern African Economic Development Region - the
cost of doing business in this region. Remember this sort of thing (among
other idea was) exactly the rationale behind formation of the EU.  And
although the EU project is floundering i.t.o. political & economic
paradoxes yet as a data project it has shown us the power & value of open
data.

These are just thoughts - but I think in order to change the current data
access paradigm requires the marshaling of significant energy (legal
battles don't give you that) so maybe what's needed is piggybacking on
other big ideas?

Sandi
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