The OPEN Government Data Act: What’s at Stake?

"Buried under the headline news of the day is the continuing story of transparency in government, including the movement to open the government’s data. The latest thread in this story is taking place in the United States Congress where the fate of the recently reintroduced Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act is under consideration, with minimal attention from the press. The goal of this bill is to make data from federal agencies freely and publicly available to anyone, in a variety of user-friendly formats. A topic that may seem irrelevant to most Americans’ daily lives, unleashing government data to the public, possesses a largely untapped transformative power with implications for government, industry, and society. If passed, the bill might help improve government operations, spur innovation in the private sector, and improve the well-being of ordinary citizens.

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Making open data publication a routine government activity is essential for making open data programs successful.[9] Health Data NY, the first state open data portal devoted to health, started as a small website with five datasets. It gained traction after Governor Andrew Cuomo issued Executive Order 95, which (1) required that all state agencies publish their data to the centralized Open NY portal; (2) called for the development of an Open Data Handbook to provide a vision and establish standards and governance; and (3) created the new role of chief information officer, among other actions. Health Data NY was also codified as a routine public health activity by making it a permanent part of the New York State Department of Health’s Office of Quality and Patient Safety and assigning dedicated staff to it. These changes at the policy and programmatic levels have allowed Health Data NY to become a national leader in making government health data easily accessible and maintain its visibility after the program’s founding health commissioner left state service in 2013."