[Product] US Government Interest in Open Product Data

[Stéphane Gigandet]

Hi Katelyn and Everyone,

This is great news. I am the founder of Open Food Facts and I support 
all the initiatives that can bring more information to consumers so that 
they can better choose what they eat and drink. Today we are using 
mostly crowdsourcing to get the data from the products themselves, but 
hopefully with initiatives such as this one, we will get more and more 
data directly from the producers.

There are two directions that can be pushed:

1. Encouraging producers / manufacturers to publish as open data the 
product data that is already present on the product labels today.

2. Encouraging producters / manufacturers to publish more data that what 
is on the label today. There is a space contraint on printed labels, but 
not for data made available on the internet. e.g. for Food products, it 
would be great to have the quantity of all ingredients, and a more 
comprehensive list of nutrients for nutrition facts.

I am definitely interested in participating in mapping the Food products 
space. We have been working with some researchers to create an ontology 
to describe food products (ingredients, nutrition facts etc.):
http://data.lirmm.fr/ontologies/food
It is a work in progress, we are looking forward to working with others 
to define a common ontology and thus maximize the potential for re-use.

Thank you,

Stéphane
http://openfoodfacts.org

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> The Director of Smart Disclosure (Sophie Raseman) of the US government 
> recently reached out to Philippe (cc'd - founder of Product Open Data, 
> POD) and I (Open Knowledge Foundation Working Group Coordinator) and 
> we had the opportunity to speak with her about POD and this new 
> working group. She was very receptive and has offered to help us 
> approach US regulatory agencies about encouraging and support 
> manufactures in releasing data.
>
> The US government is fragmented and there are different agencies 
> responsible for different sectors but no single body with authority in 
> the product space. As such, we determined a sensible strategy going 
> forward would be to create a product matrix, dividing the product 
> space by sector and then proceeding as follows:
>
>   * Determine Data Needs by Sector: Identify the data needed to
>     empower customers in each sector (i.e. Food Sector you might need
>     barcode, Nutritional Data, source/geographical data and packaging
>     data whereas in the electronics sector you might only need
>     barcode, supply chain and recycling data). Priorities data needs.
>   * Match each sector to the relevant regulatory agency and existing
>     legislation/regulations (i.e. Food and Drug Administration
>     regulation on nutritional labelling)
>   * Strategically Approach Agencies about Encouraging Open Product
>     Data: Sophie will work with us on determining the best agencies to
>     approach based the potential of high level political support and
>     agency's receptiveness and support for open data
>
>
> I wanted to send this out to the list and see what others think and 
> also see if people would interested in *participating in mapping out 
> the product space*? While it is not necessarily the case the 
> regulatory environment is as fragmented in other countries as it is in 
> the US, I think that it would be useful to *lay out some shared 
> notions about what we are talking about when we say open product data.*
>
> Finally, and I do apologise for the length of this email, we will 
> likely be starting with the *food and health sector *in the US as 
> there is strong political will and existing regulations. I know that a 
> number of you are working on open food data and I would be interested 
> in hearing from you about the needs and challenges in this sector.
>
> I look forward to working with all of you in growing this initiative 
> and please feel free to introduce yourself on the mailing list! Tell 
> us who you are, where you are, and what you want out of this group!
>
> All the best,
> Katelyn
>
> -- 
>
> Katelyn Rogers
>
> Working Groups Community Manager  | katelyn.rogers at okfn.org 
> <mailto:katelyn.rogers at okfn.org> <https://twitter.com/joebloggs> | 
> Skype: katelynjrogers
>
> TheOpen Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>
>
> Empowering through Open Knowledge
>
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