Public Data Yours or Mine?
Joshua Gans has an opinion piece in The Age today on Government 2.0.
Taskforce needs to loosen grip on hidden public data
Joshua Gans, The Age, 6th July 2009 (see also WA Today)
The Government’s tight control of public information is outdated.
UNLOCKING the information collection by governments — and deciding what information could be of social value — is the aim behind the new ‘Government 2.0′ taskforce headed by economist Nicholas Gruen.
The taskforce’s mission results from a key recommendation in the Cutler Review on Innovation — a taskforce that Dr Gruen served on.
In BusinessDay last August , I highlighted an example with regard to the free availability of public toilet location information — also mentioned in the Cutler review because that information had actually been collected as part of the National Continence Management Strategy and gave Australia perhaps the most comprehensive toilet location map in the world.
However, that information was provided only in ways the Federal Government chose to and it could not easily be viewed on a mobile device.
That has improved, but not to the extent of allowing developers to match the information with devices in a truly usable manner.
Follow the link for more.
