[open-government] How to open up local government data

Fri Jul 9 12:08:24 UTC 2010

Oh, I believe you, resistance is the norm.

I can understand concern that release of 911 call data might be raise
concerns about disclosing who is using police services, but if the
media can legally get the stuff, automating data release will happen
_some day_ unless laws specifically prohibit it.

My suggestion is that the vast majority of people have no reason to
abstractly support open data/government. To most people "democracy" is
a process and not an outcome that influences how they vote. So, open
government is generally considered a non-partisan or bi-partisan issue
meaning that a few "democratically-spirited" elected officials work on
legislation but candidates/parties do not compete on the issue in an
electoral way. This means they make far fewer promises and the
institutional resistance grinds away at the majority of politicians
who then say, this is too complex and I won't get any votes from this
so forget moving legislation on this issue at this time.

Crime data "competition" could break through this problem. It can be a
leading political issue in campaigns because the candidate or party
that makes the promise first will perceive a political advantage.

Here is the promise from the UK Conservative Party Manifesto:

"We will oblige the police to publish detailed
local crime data statistics every month, in an
open and standardised format."

I was in London last week and this promise is making quite a stir in
police circles apparently. Without that political promise, getting
this to happen on a uniform basis would be almost impossible. It still
might be.

So, what I would do is start encouraging a little political
competition by saying that Conservative Party promises like X and
Obama's promises like Y were real and helped them get elected. Might
be a stretch, but these open government pledges with some specificity
are extremely rare.These political promises are essential.

Say, some links of interest:
http://pages.e-democracy.org/Minneapolis_and_St._Paul_crime_data

Posts from CityCamp about crime data:
http://bit.ly/bMxves

Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
  Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
  Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
  New Tel: +1.612.234.7072

On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 2:12 AM, Innovation Navigator
<innovation-navigator at chello.at> wrote:
> dear Steve,
>
> political reality is a bit more complex as you described it.
>
> In Vienna in the past three years the police provided real-time data to
> a private neighbour-watch platform. Now they stopped that, referred to some
> data protection provisions (nonsense) and even argued that security
> is a PUBLIC task and that THEY will start such an online monitoring service
> on the mobile phone.
>
> so in socialist ruled countries it will be difficult to convince Governments
> to release that kind of _politically sensitive_ data.
>
> kind regards,
>
>
> Gerhard
>
> At 18:56 08.07.2010, Uhlir, Paul wrote:
>>
>> Good idea, Steven. This raises the issue of building on the pull rather
>> than engineering a push.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Steven Clift [clift at e-democracy.org]
>> Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 9:43 AM
>> To: Tim Davies
>> Cc: Uhlir, Paul; open-government at lists.okfn.org; Simon Rogers
>> Subject: Re: [open-government] How to open up local government data
>>
>> My suggestion is to focus in a coordinated way on the local data
>> everyday people really want - local crime data.
>>
>> Get politicians/parties to promise near real-time access to crime data
>> when they are campaigning for election and build from there.
>>
>>
>> Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com
>>  Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org
>>  Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy
>>  New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
>>
>>
>>
>> 2010/7/8 Tim Davies <tim at timdavies.org.uk>:
>> > (apologies, I hit send on the last message too soon... extra
>> > 'strategies'
>> > bit in this version)
>> >
>> > On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Tim Davies <tim at timdavies.org.uk> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Paul, Simon
>> >> Paul: I very much agree on the need for thought on strategies and
>> >> tactics
>> >> to overcome some of the structural/cultural barriers to local open
>> >> data.
>> >> Principles:
>> >> On Simon's principles, I wonder if they are strengthened by focussing
>> >> on
>> >> '#2 as Make is Readable for Humans and Computers' rather than narrowing
>> >> the
>> >> focus to 'machine readable'.
>> >> I'm not sure the claim "If developers can't build applications
>> >> and campaigners can't analyse it, what use is it?" holds up entirely.
>> >> I'm
>> >> finding many use-cases of open data where data can't be easily turned
>> >> into
>> >> applications or subjected to very clever analysis - but people are
>> >> empowered
>> >> simply by being able to browse a Spreadsheet and find the specific fact
>> >> they've been asking a local authority for years.
>> >> In terms of principles for data release, emphasising the process of at
>> >> least the first three of the five-stars here is perhaps
>> >> best:
>> >> http://inkdroid.org/journal/2010/06/04/the-5-stars-of-open-linked-data/
>> >> I.e.
>> >> $B!z(B make your stuff available on the web (whatever format)
>> >> $B!z!z(B make it available as structured data (e.g. excel instead of
>> >> image scan
>> >> of a table)
>> >> $B!z!z!z(B non-proprietary format (e.g. csv instead of excel)
>> >>
>> >> Strategies:
>> >
>> >  In terms of strategies I wonder if there is also a useful 0.5 star
>> > point to
>> > encourage local authorities to look at:
>> > */2 - publish and keep updated a list of the data you know you have -
>> > even
>> > if you've not made it open yet - and provide an easy way for people to
>> > contact you to ask for it to be open.
>> > That would provide a way of better allowing the release of data to be
>> > driven
>> > by local demand...
>> > Tim
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > open-government at lists.okfn.org
>> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
>> >
>> >
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