The agenda for the September 28th edition of Thunder Bay City Council includes a discussion of the “Open Data Portal” whose purpose is: “…is to establish a framework for making City data open and available to citizens, organizations, and businesses by minimizing barriers so that they can benefit from the information and add value to it.” What does this entail? Well, as described by the policy document:
The City will:
· Maintain an open data licence and other relative information on the Open Data Portal.
· Maintain an online Open Data Portal with a listing of all Open Data available and links to download each dataset.
· Proactively make Data available to the public on the Open Data Portal.
· Where available, include Metadata for each Dataset with information such as how the data was collected, when the data was last updated, and the expected update frequency of the dataset.
· Engage in dialogue with the community regarding data needs and requests.
· Prioritize and evaluate requests for Open Data from citizens in accordance with City policies and priorities and based on the readiness and suitability of the Datasets for public release.
This appears to be a sort of Data liberation initiative and if the policy is to be taken at its word, then it should be a welcome addition to the City of Thunder Bay’s website. However, one hopes that there is a discussion this evening that provides examples of what type of data will be released? Will it be aggregate results on a neighborhood level of assorted city surveys that have been done over the years? Will we finally be getting staffing level information on a departmental basis and over time so that meaningful comparisons can be done? What does “machine readable” mean in terms of what the City makes available? Is it only csv or excel files or will some type of proprietary software package be needed that users will have to purchase from the City of Thunder Bay even if the data is “free”? What exactly will the decision process be as to what data to release and what variable swill be made available?
One worries that when governments commit to “open data” the public access will become harder rather than easier despite the intent of any legislation. Indeed, the statement that users: “Not misrepresent the information or its use” sounds like an effort to control what is done and that there will be decisions made based on the "need to know." After all, if someone draws a conclusion from statistical analysis as to what trends are in employment or financial data that City Council or its administrators do not like or agree with, does that constitute differing empirical analysis or “misrepresentation”?
Municipal data is already notoriously difficult to come by. Financial and budgetary information or employment level data even if available is not transparent or easy to understand and one is often left to external sources for data that facilitates comparison of Thunder Bay’s municipal finances to other jurisdictions – such as the annual report put together by BMA consulting. True, one can go onto the Ministry of Municipal Affairs site to access the FIR data on finances, but it is not easy to use either.
So, an Administrative Open Data Committee is going to be established that will decide all of this stuff and it will: “Engage in dialogue with the public and dataset requestors as needed to get additional information and provide status about requests submitted through the open data request form on the City of Thunder Bay Website. Work with the appropriate staff from each department to document, prioritize and evaluate requests for Open Data in accordance with City policies and priorities and based on the readiness and suitability of the datasets for public release.” It would be interesting to know what datasets the city even has?
As always, the devil is in the details. Statistics Canada is notorious for starting and then abruptly ending data series making it difficult to construct consistent time series. One wonders if
the City is planning to provide more detailed data on things like properties in
tax arrears, or how many complaints come in with respect to certain issues. For
example, I would be interested in knowing how many reports have been made of
pinhole leaks to the City of Thunder Bay?
Surely, knowing how many reports have been received per month over the
last two years is not something that does not “respect the privacy of
individuals whose information is reflected in the City Datasets.”
My guess is that this Open Data Committee is going to take a long time to set the parameters.
