Looking for a place to eat outside? A city’s public dataset might help you find one. An open dataset makes information available for others to access, use, and share, rather than keeping it within the organization that collected it. Openness is about the terms of reuse, not just whether a file can be viewed: a broad definition also allows people to modify the data, with requirements such as preserving attribution. section 6.5.5 section 6.5.1
Government data is an important source, but not the only one. Companies, individuals, and research organizations can also make data open. Public datasets can help people understand services, support research, and give businesses material for new applications. Transport for London, for example, provides feeds and guidelines covering travel and other city concerns; an estimate put the annual benefits and savings from its open-data releases at up to £130 million in 2017. section 6.5.1 section 3.6
Making data useful also means deciding what should not be opened:
- Public-sector candidates include information about roads, jobs, building permits, and school lunch programs. section 6.5.4
- Personal identity information, national-security data, and information that could disadvantage people or groups are excluded from the proposed government releases. section 6.5.4
- Someone’s posts, transactions, or travel records do not become open simply because they exist. Whether data can be shared responsibly, and who can designate it open, matter. section 6.5.3
From a dataset to a decision
Chicago published a map of establishments offering outdoor dining. For someone choosing lunch, a government dataset becomes a practical guide. US government data.gov also links to open-data resources across different levels of government. section 6.5.5
Open data grew alongside open-source software and draws on ideas about managing shared resources. Its next question is one you can ask of any proposed dataset: who benefits from access, who decides what is shared, and how are people protected? Data commons and emerging approaches to individual data control extend that conversation beyond publishing public files. section 6.5 section 6.0 section 6.5.3
