Blog Author: Rod MacPherson
We recently hosted an
Executive Breakfast Seminar on Open Data at the offices of CORADIX and were
pleasantly surprised by the greater than expected turnout by senior government
personnel wanting to learn more about the risk, challenges, opportunities and benefits
of Canada's Open Government Action Plan.
(see data.gc.ca)
Like many other jurisdictions,
including 30 countries, and hundreds of municipal and provincial level
government organizations, Canada followed the lead of the United States, who
launched its' open data portal in 2009. (see data.gov) Starting with the release of just a few
hundred datasets, the Open Data movement in government entities around the
world has led to the release of literally million's of data sets on all topics
ranging from socio-economic data and geo-spatial datasets to extensive details
on government operations.
The Canadian approach to Open
Government relies on 3 pillars. Open Data, Open Information and Open Dialog. Open
Data is about offering government data in a more useful format to enable
citizens, the private sector and non-government organizations to leverage it in
innovative and value-added ways. Open
Information is about proactively releasing
information, including on government activities, to Canadians on an ongoing
basis. By proactively making government information available it will be easier
to find and more accessible for Canadians. Open Dialogue, which is about giving
Canadians a stronger say in government policies and priorities, and expanding
engagement through Web 2.0 technologies. (my next blog will talk about why
Canada differentiates between Open Information and Open Data)
For many in the room, the
session was a sobering sort of wake-up call, as I pointed out to participants
the obvious risks associated with releasing open data sets such as the
liabilities and potential embarrassment associated with releasing erroneous
data, to the not-so apparent risks such as foreign intelligence organizations
combining disparate data sets in such a way as to expose national security
vulnerabilities. (the example I used was a case where a vulnerability was
exposed by comparing weather data with emergency response statistics and
geo-spatial data - resulting in the ability to predict the impact of
threatening weather on the security apparatus) In addition to the direct risks from the data
itself, we also discussed the potential political risks of government-wide
releases of certain datasets, that because they lack a common architecture and
meta-data standards. Exposing these practices (or lack thereof) could create
additional workload and embarrassment for the stewards responsible for those
datasets- and more significantly for the political apparatus behind it.
While there was much
discussion around the downsides, there was also widespread acknowledgement of
the benefits and opportunities, the most significant of which was enabling the
constituent citizens and industry to generate economic advantage and innovation
by leveraging the rich datasets now freely accessible.
For data management
practitioners - the Open Data imperative provides the perfect business case-
and timing to introduce enhanced data management practices in government sector
organizations. Data Management
professionals need to be front and centre in these initiatives, putting in
place to practices to ensure that Open Data sets are consistently architected,
described and delivered with a defensible and competent approach to ensuring
their quality. Data stewards need to be clearly identifiable as they will become
the focal point for departments and agencies being faced with questions and
challenges about their data. Finally, as always, none of these things are going
to happen without an effective governance mechanism to ensure that these
practices are being properly employed.
To us as data management
professionals, we have always understood the compelling value proposition of
improved data management practices for all organizations- however the lack of
customer focus, and a profit imperative has made it difficult to convince
government decision-makers to direct more investment in this area. The Open
Data imperative breathes considerable new life into the strength of imperative;
the time has come for us to "Carpe diem".
