[open-government] Economic benefits of open data

Tue Nov 16 02:33:54 UTC 2010

Hi Everyon!

Thank you for the overwhelming response and I apologise for taking so long to get back. I am unfortunately a citizen with a day job (two actually, maybe three), so I have had a tough time keeping up. Please see the translations + sources below. The presentation this was for went super well and we turned a room of 100 grass-roots organizational people, bureaucrats and business people into open-data fans who made open-data the number one priority for technology in Montreal. 

See some of you in a few days in London, I look forward to exchanging more revolutionary ideas. 

The Aussies have a great page with data studies and I have a dropbox with a bunch of studies (that I have not managed to read yet). 

Via: Susannah Sabine <susannah.sabine at ands.org.au>

The page is freely accessible by all.
http://community.ands.org.au/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=381&sid=9ba054b9b25272a0ba157d3afcab6f0f
Please feel free to add links to any other studies that you may know of.

Cheers,

JB
jonathanbrun.com

Economic Benefits of Open Data - A Summary

Proposed categories via Sunlight Foundation: Tom Lee <tlee at sunlightfoundation.com>

direct - the release of freely-usable GIS data by the government enables the creation of a variety of commercial products and services

consumer surplus-enhancing - national weather data lowers the price of a variety of meteorological products and services

positive externality-producing - the DMV posting registration forms online allows drivers to save time spent in line; those hours can be used for work or leisure

foundational - posting legal and legislative information online enhances the effectiveness of government and the health of society, both of which are necessary underpinnings to economic activity

Studies

The value of Danish address data:
Social benefits from the 2002 agreement on procuring address data etc. free of charge
L'ouverture des données du gouvernement danois (couts: 14 millions, bénéfices 62 millions (euros))
http://www.adresse-info.dk/Portals/2/Benefit/Value_Assessment_Danish_Address_Data_UK_2010-07-07b.pdf

Local

The Socio-Economic Impact of the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Catalonia cost 1.5 million and saved 14 million euros.
•	Partage des informations entre les municipalités de la Catalogne (couts: 1.5 Millions, bénéfices : 14 millions (euros))
http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/Study_reports/catalonia_impact_study_report.pdf

•	Concours d'applications qui utilisent les données ouvertes à Washington D.C. (couts : 50 000$, bénéfices : 2 000 000 (dollars US))

State Level

3.7 billion dollar charity fraud exposed thanks to open-data
http://eaves.ca/2010/04/14/case-study-open-data-and-the-public-purse/

•	Les données météorologiques américaine supporte une industrie de plus de 1.5 milliards de dollars.
http://infovegan.com/2010/08/09/how-did-weather-data-get-opened

•	L'accès aux informations géospatial en Angleterre et au Pays de Galles a augmenté le PIB de presque 320 millions de livres Sterling en 2008-2009.
- The 2008 figures collected by the Constitution Unit at the University College London for the cost of servicing Freedom of Information Act requests in the UK i.e. the costs of maintaining a closed system of £38,000,000. Although FOI requests can sometimes be for information that cant be released to the public domain.

Regional

Website on government expenditures allowed california to recoup 20 million dollars (61 000 dollars to set-up site) and for Texas to save 5 million dollars. 
•	Site web sur la transparence en Californie (couts : 61 000, bénéfices : 20 000 000 ) et au Texas (bénéfices : 5 000 000). (dollars US)
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un-dpadm/unpan038845.pdf

International

International work by Joseph Stieglitz on Informational government activity and how it can lead to new businesses.
http://archive.epinet.org/real_media/010111/materials/stiglitz.pdf

Businesses built on open-data

- Weather channels etc. 
- Entreprises qui permet au citoyens américains de comparer les différents programmes de retraites gouvernementales grâce au portail data.gov - revenues 100k - 3 millions et 10 millions.

Background Material

you can also see his views on PSI

The principles include:

"Green Light" for On-Line and Informational Government Activity
•	Principle 1: Providing public data and information is a proper governmental role. 
•	Principle 2: Improving the efficiency with which governmental services are provided is a
proper governmental role.
  •	Principle 3: The support of basic research is a proper governmental role.

"Yellow Light" for On-Line and Informational Government Activity
•	Principle 4: The government should exercise caution in adding specialized value to public data and information.
•	Principle 5: The government should only provide private goods, even if private-sector firms are not providing them, under limited circumstances.
•	Principle 6: The government should only provide a service on-line if private provision with regulation or appropriate taxation would not be more efficient.
• Principle 7: The government should ensure that mechanisms exist to protect privacy, security, and consumer protection on-line.
• Principle 8: The government should promote network externalities only with great deliberation and care.
•	Principle 9: The government should be allowed to maintain proprietary information or exercise rights under patents and/or copyrights only under special conditions (including national security).

"Red Light" for On-Line and Informational Government Activity
•	Principle 10: The government should exercise substantial caution in entering markets in which private-sector firms are active.
• Principle 11: The government (including governmental corporations) should generally not aim to maximize net revenues or take actions that would reduce competition.
•	Principle 12: The government should only be allowed to provide goods or services for which appropriate privacy and conflict-of-interest protections have been erected.

http://archive.epinet.org/real_media/010111/materials/stiglitz.pdf

On 2010-11-15, at 1:29 PM, Ton Zijlstra wrote:

> I heard the Dutch Ministry of Education say they saw the number of requests and questions (so not just FOIA, but all requests for info) drop significantly by releasing all their education related data pro-actively (well, not entirely proactive, it took a court case to get them going, but they did that very constructively and saw the court decision as an opportunity). Also the questions they still receive they can answer faster, as they now know themselves where to find the data. Will see if I can get some more concrete 'proof' from them.
> 
> As to arguing for the potential of open data. With the new Dutch government (very much focused on budget cuts, and spending but 1 line in the coalition agreement on internet and things digital) as well as with local governments (also very much looking at budget costs) I am currently much more focussing on how releasing data 1) helps that department itself to execute tasks, and reach goals. 2) helps the department's 'clients' to better reach their goals / do their tasks. So positioning it either as being more efficient and more effective themselves, and as being less 'needed' by empowering the ones the department serves to be more effective (which also improves gov's image). 
> 
> best,
> Ton
> -------------------------------------------
> Interdependent Thoughts
> Ton Zijlstra
> 
> ton at tonzijlstra.eu
> +31-6-34489360
> 
> http://zylstra.org/blog
> -------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 5:58 PM, <toby at law-democracy.org> wrote:
> 
> I agree that this argument has advocacy potential, hence my 'admission'
> that I use it myself.
> 
> I am becoming concerned, however, that it will create a backlash in due
> course. Already in Canada I would say one tends to get little mileage out
> of such arguments.
> 
> So I would like to see two things:
> 
> 1) Solid economic arguments based on evidence (I know about the UCL
> Constitution Unit's work but I don't think it amounts to this). This could
> either be generic studies about the value of proactive disclosure or more
> focused studies on the economic benefits of open data. It would be great
> if Tim's proposed session for London could go ahead.
> 2) More rights based arguments that do not depend on cost (sort of along
> the lines of your second para. below). I think there are interesting
> opportunities here (eg along the lines of proactive disclosure delivering
> the right to information more effectively, as some posts to this list have
> argued, and also deliver it in a more egalitarian way).
> 
> Best, Toby
> 
> 
> > I can only speak for the UK. There is a study by the University College
> > London's Constitution Unit, that tracks FOIA request types, quantity and
> > cost and has been doing this from 2006.
> > http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/publications.htm
> > There is a real concern by people who deal with FOIA requests that by
> > making things open will bring on an onslaught of requests but so far from
> > what I hear, this hasn't manifested itself as of yet. There are web based
> > request sites that make the process of request easier whether this is
> > having an effect I don't know.
> >
> > The law gives certain rights to information and compliance has cost. It is
> > whether you have the information wrenched from you which costs or that you
> > have a mechanism so people can 'self-serve' which also costs but probably
> > less.
> >
> > I suppose in the current climate we are getting more traction from public
> > bodies by giving them a cost saving argument rather than an innovation
> > one.
> >
> > Julian
> >
> > On 15 Nov 2010, at 15:34, toby at law-democracy.org wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Right to information activists, including myself, routinely make the
> >> argument that proactive disclosure will reduce the burden of processing
> >> requests for information, and in some countries (eg India), this is even
> >> built into the law. However, I do not know of any proper study on this
> >> relationship. Intuitively, outside of the routine release of very basic
> >> information, I believe it is equally likely that more proactive
> >> disclosure
> >> may actually stimulate more requests for information (through whetting
> >> peoples' appetites for information).
> >>
> >> It may
> 
> 
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