[Open-data-census] open data faq - publicly available

[Gene Shackman]

Hi all

This was discussed before, but I wanted to add my 2 cents.

On this faq page
http://2013.census.okfn.org/faq/
I am wondering about the "Publicly available" definition, which includes "If a freedom of information request or similar is needed to access the data, answer "no"."  It seems to me this is still publicly available. It meets this criterion "does require that *someone* outside of the government can access in some form."  You include data that has to be purchased as publicly available, so someone has to make a request and then pay. Data available through freedom of information is similar: someone has to make a request.

The only data not publicly available would be stuff you cannot purchase, cannot get through a freedom of information request, cannot make copies of, probably not available because of national security or contains individual information. That is, the source has to say, no, the public cannot have access to those data.


Gene 


Gene Shackman, Ph.D. 
The Global Social Change Research Project 
http://gsociology.icaap.org 
Free Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research 
http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods 
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Applied Sociologist 
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