"Data makes our world work – imagine a world without the open standards that power the Web, or the GPS signal that powers our sat navs and phones, or the open data that describes the human genome.
The G8 Open Data Charter was unveiled at Loch Erne today, and recognises “a new era in which people can use open data to generate insights, ideas, and services to create a better world for all.”
In recent years we have seen a gathering momentum behind open government data – a global movement to open up public, non-personal data that the public sector collects, generates and holds in our name.
We have seen how hard it can be for governments to embrace this culture. At a time when we face a crisis of confidence in public and private governance, open data can help to build long-term trust, but this will also require commitments to quality and usability.
Even in the UK, where we claim some leadership in this field, we have found it impossible as yet to release critical open data assets, such as the county’s legal addresses, or the boundary data relating to land titles, or basic environmental data such as national flood data. We need strong leadership from the top of the G8, committed officials within government, and a willingness to support those at the coalface: those who collect, generate, manage and oversee this new information revolution. We need this innovation because we face unprecedented challenges as a society: an increasing population with very different demographics in different regions, environmental security, economic stability, growth and more. We see open data as a crucial part of rising to these challenges. Quite simply open data is an enabler of freedom. Our freedom to trade, to learn, to be secure, and to our well-being as individuals, organisations, and as countries. Done well, its impact will be material, measurable, and transparent. What is the impact of the G8 commitments? Open government data lets citizens hold government to account for what it spends and the contracts it places, lets us to see the rates of infection in our hospitals and reduce them in the UK by 85 per cent, and drives transport apps that people use to make their way efficiently around cities. But like the early days of the Web itself, this is only the beginning. The new agreements on extractive industries will use open data to quantify if mining contracts are actually returning the revenue expected to a country and its citizens. On tax, open data will demonstrate how companies are paying tax, in what jurisdictions and who owns what. This will help untangle the corporate web to ensure fair returns to the countries that host and support companies, which impacts all of us. It is hard to imagine a more timely and important economic and social need. Other information releases agreed in the Charter relate to spending and land ownership, health and education, transport and environment. They can all be used to build new services that benefit people. They create new conditions for open innovation, and will yield sustainable services as a source of credible economic growth.
The Open Data Institute which we established in London has already shown the economic, social, and environmental potential latent in open data. One of its startups identified £200 million of savings in the NHS for one class of prescription drugs. Another is selling access to a whole range of transport data which TfL by its own accounts reckons has yielded a return worth 56 times its investment ... How can we measure progress and hold the G8 to account? To its credit, the charter details many of these. But we know that countries are serious about open data when they choose to open the data not because it is easy, but because it is hard. So we need to see real evidence of new datasets from these categories at future meetings of the G8. Countries must engage with citizens, the private sector, and third-sector organisations to identify basic impact data and commit to their release, and develop standards necessary for international comparison while monitoring their delivery of open data against quality indicators. Launched at the G8 3T event on Saturday, the ODI’s new Open Data Certificate is an instrument to enable this: it covers the practical, legal, technical and social aspects of effective open data publication. It’s the world’s first robust quality badge for open data. And it’s free. Countries should commit to measuring the quality of their open data publication against a localised version of the Open Data Certificate (or an equivalent instrument). The ODI is already investing in and collaborating with countries around the development of the certificates. We believe this could be as important as the development of the core systems that enabled the web to flourish. As we make use of the data, we have the opportunity to tangibly assess its impact and tell the story of how data can be transformed into insight that changes the world ..."