WS 189 Open Government Data for citizens, by citizens, about citizens?
>>: We are going to start in two or three minutes.
>>: Good morning everyone and welcome to our session. The workshop one 89 on open
Government data or ultimate for citizens by citizens about citizens. We have an excellent
panel here with us today and I will quickly introduce after introducing myself, my name is
desee re, I am with A fi lyos and we are one of the companies that runs top level domain
name reji industries like.info and look forward to our workshop that we help organise
with the open rights group here on our panel and our other participants so briefly I will
start by a quick intro ducktion of who we have here today on our panel. Next to me is
havyer Rees who is an cti visited and campaigner working in open data and access. To my
right site is I have a pleasure sitting next to Al cags who is the founder of trustee of the
open institute in Kenya and heek is also the chair of Kenya open data initiative. Next to
him is Andrea Beccaly who is with the international foundation of libraries in the Hague.
He is a Project Manager and policy advocacy at the international federation of libraries
association or I F LA. To the left of havyer we have a pleasure also of having on our panel
here tot and we than him for stepping in, Leonard and he is an adviser on anything digital.
He works with open data an works for the green party as well. And last but not least is
Dominic. Dominic is from UK think tank. It is a taxpayer's alliance an she also sits on
open data user group in the cabinet office in the UK. We have also received apologies
from the data.Government.UK representative who unfortunately could not be with us
here today so I am just pass i on apologies.
So in order to start our panel and which will be addressing the issues of about data
policies that are being developed with regards to open Government data, we will try to
answer many questions such as whether governments have the right to create value out
of citizen data as well as how should this be governed and whether citizens should be
expected to provide data in exchange for public services. And we will also look at the
impact of core reference data and, for example hood governments provide truly free
geolocation services and mapping for their open data initiatives or whether they should
leave these to private companies that will provide free and service paid with the citizen
data so there is quite a range of complex data policies that we should look at today and we
will also look at how these open ai ta policies N many cases sit alongside aggressive
policies that allow for surveillance of citizens Internet use and whether these place
limitations on the promise of open data. With that I would like to ask our first panel list,
Javier Ruiz to perhaps give us an overview of some emerging issues with open
Government data.
>>: Javier Ruiz I would like to make a very brief introduction to the topic. It won't take very
long and I think that hopefully we will have more time for cfnanz so just to understand in
previous I G Fs I think rth open data was called public sector information workshop T and
that was the title under which this discussion was following. Just understand I think there
is a public sector framework in Europe and in the US we have simply intellectual property
restrictions in federal information which has let to a whole spread and development of
industry industries and reuse and in the past 3 years this has exploded and become very
important. Open data takes things one step further by really going for a completely
proactive release on data to put it online with as many restrictions as possible to promote
much more use so we are talking about things like technical formats that enable
replication, reuse of the data an licence an very importantly in Europe there is a data
framework is about the non-discrimination of purposes and trying to put as little
restriction so it is not, open data you don't go to contract to sign a contract with
Government and explain how you are going to use the data, this is what you are going to
do or not do and pay a royalty or maybe not but you just get it and other people will do it
again and again and again again and it is a bit of a (inaudible) data. Of course open data
on its own for many people is important but also it is seen as a building block for what is
called open Government which is the idea that you can actually transform the
fundamental relationship between citizens and the state through information an
engagement an that T should be open an a right. So just understand when we talk about
open data mostly we mean public data in just to be clear it does not have to be just public
sector data and increasingly there is of course with social media everyone knows about
Twitter annual ticks an things like that, trars lots and lots further data sets come from
companies that are really eem for citizens and most again, most private sector has higher
importance both social and economic, we need to start asking questions what the public
interest lies, whether it is just with the state, not just in the provision of public services,
private companies, but also things like private mapping and other infrastructure and
things like that. Infrastructure and transport are two of the areas where the role of
private companies would need to be questioned in the next few years. Going back to
public data we have just to give very, very top level, we can identify several types of data,
each with its own issues around governance and potential implications so if we look at
what we call core reference data which is things like maps, weather, registers. Things that
where there is only one version of the truth more or less and normally provided by the
state and that is very important. It normally has high economic value. In some countries
it can be very valuable, in other countries may not exist at all. May have countries oant
have a national mapping service, a request to ask and again here we raise the question
before should the Government really be providing this mapping for free, if you want to
map public toilets which is one of the things that has been done in many countries for
people with disabilities, you need a map. But it is all very good but heauf to use the maps
and information you are disabled you need that, you know, there is many issues raised
there and just another type of data, funktional data, this is where a lot of the direct impact
can come from open data, things like the microstatistics that the Parliaments use for
levels of pollution, environmental departments, again, public toilets, some are
spreadsheet in the Government dep where public toilets are located. All that type of
really useful bits of information, all that can go out and really be put too very good use
and we think that this is really one of the key areas and obviously that type of functional
data from the state extents to the judiciary awl the data that the state needs to function
itself by sairing it with citizens can be a lot more useful and that is one of the key areas of
open data. Then we don't think that there are huge previous implications in that type of
data because it will be at some point, here the main thing is about how do you govern and
make sure this data gets out. Then public services data, here we have two types of
data: on the one hang you have performance data which is what many politicians will talk
about, public services which is for example the mortality rates of a particular doctor or
department. Should you be able to choose which doctor you use on the basis of previous
experience of patients. Of course we believe that. That provides a type of accountability
and deliver public services which acts as the managerial level an one thing that we think
is important is to distinguish this type of accountability from the political accountability of
the elected representatives. So that is something that we have to remember and that is
the issue in terms of public service data because many -- it is all very good to say this
doctor is responsible but who is responsible for creating the policy framework that put
that doctor there. So. Then the other question with public services, one of the biggest
issues in terms of open data which is the personal data of public service users. In the UK
there are no plans to share medical records, welfare data of many types with private
companies in order to improve analytics on that data and that data actually, it is private
data from citizens. That is processed by the state as the data control in European data
speak, right now. Really that is the does the Government have the right to even
anonymise that data to create value for the state or how do we govern this? There are not
two actors, there is the Government, the state, the other thard party and at the moment
there is not a good way for how you deal with this. People develop new applications and
data handling capabilities; all this information becomes more valuable and mofr useful
mee really need to think how we govern that. We don't want to stifle innovation but we
really have to be careful about this type of data. Then something that is important to see
as well is public cultural information, this is something that is increasingly relevant. All
the text imin public libraries ultimately is data an this data can be really useful not just for
Google to develop translation services, but for everyone else in society. There are lots of
issues around whether it is public domain or lonz to the state or libraries but we think
this is going to. Bibigger bigger issue. Then again we say the public account pi before
things like Government meetings, that is again public data and we also think that should
be part of the framework to prv transparency and finally, we think that going back to the
first question private sector data should be included in this framework. Definitely public
service delivery by the private sector, you know also in the context so just to summarise
there have been lots of discussions sbm not lots, lots of discussions around privacy on
some of these data sets but what I think you need to look at is not just privacy or
Government pech but what is the governance framework that is going to let us advance an
deliver on the really good things this open data can deliver but at the same time protect
the interest of citizens, ultimately the onus of that public data and heen there the onus,
they are the ones that pay the taxes that pay the data that is not theirs so you really have
to include them. Just to cap the benefits that we want to achieve in the UK from
transparency and improve governance, better public services and economic development
and we think that you can integrate all these aspects and for in many cases governments
tend to focus on one or the other and when they focus on transparency they forget
economic development and in economics they forget citizens private data ownership but
we think we need to in te rait those an as we said before we also need to be careful about
the wider context. In the UK to give an example we have some the best open data policies
but right now we also have a plan by the Government for sign up inspection black boxes
and everything the interwitnessed service provider so we are asking people to move all
the to say that we are going to have this data and we are also saying we are going to
monitor and survey all that data by citizens. We need an open data policy fame mur that
sits alongside a wider detailed policy framework that is consistent so thank you very
much. Just to say that some of these questions will be also relate to some works that will
take later on run the Government partnership which is this thing really comes to the
forethe relation between transparency and -- the open Government partnership which
has an open transparency programme and tamed blockers in Britain so we really need to
see how this thing works, thank you.
>>: Thank you for that very useful overview and also a set of issues that we need to grapple
with in order to find good governance models. If I may ask Al Kags perhaps to tell us
a little bit about the work that the Government in Kenya and the private sector and the
open institute has done because that seems to be the shining example and the leading
example from a developing countries how things should work and how things should be
there.
>>: Al Kags Thank you very much for having me. I thought that I would focus my conversation
on what the experience has been in Kenya, the open institute is an African organisation
working with governments in Africa and the developing countries to promote the opening
up of data by Government to promote also the participation of citizens. We have had
some very interesting experiences and I just thought I would share some of them at high
level and then maybe at the end of it take questions. The first point I wanted to talk about
was the question of motivation. In the Kenya N experience for example and in a lot of
other countries I think many of you will know that while governments say that they
would like to be as transparent as possible it is not a very popular thing, account pi tents
not to be a popular thing, especially with leadership, so getting countries to publish data
sometimes can be jeopardised by the fact that the leaders are afraid of what that might
mean. In Kenya we took the view that that instead of pushing the question of
accountability and transparency we would instead push the question of prosperity, that
open data will give employment, will help young people who are developers to develop
obligations, help young entrepreneurs to find solutions that will better their lives and that
sort of thing. Which in Kenya turned out to be a very popular argument for the leadership
and which we are finding also among other governments in the region to be a popular
way into going about it. I sort of disagree with the view that when you focus on
development you might not focus or you might not address yourself to accountability.
I think the whole question is so long as you get open account pi happens as a default
which is why we don't talk about accountability, we talk it down because of the fact that it
ends up being a default by product. The view that we take when the citizen is in power to
access data from that perspective then then (inaudible) once you have got governments to
agree to publish the data in principle then you realise that from the leadership you go to
the technocrats and the technocrats then start grappling with the hows and the so on and
so forth. In Kenya we take fairly utilitarian approach and I have become a champion of
the utilitarian approach where you deliver in bits. You take what you can get now and
you start with that and then you build on it as you go. I have seen a number of open
initiatives that are in danger of being still born because of the fact that there is an attempt
to try and get everything perfect, an attempt to try and ensure that the platforms that you
use are open and so on and so forth as we would like them and an attempt to ensure that
the licensing regime is in place at the time that you are publishing an attempt to ensure
hat you have a certain number of important data sets in a certain kind of level of quality
and an attempt to, all of those things so my general suggestion in the experience that we
have had in Kenya is that we went and looked for whatever was readily available, in the
sense of household data, we found health data and education data in the department,
ministry of education had already been trying to publish their data in their own little site,
we were able to incorporate that and we went ahead in a very short time in a span of eight
weeks from the day that we decided that this was the time that we were going to focus on.
Within eight weeks we have launched an open data portal and then we continue to sort of
pushing more data on to it. The reason that this is important is because when you do
these things incrementally you also show the technocrats who sometimes are also afraid
of what open data means and what this openness means and who have grown up, many
have been working in the civil service for a long time and who have come to believe that
governments are supposed to hold data secrets, it is not supposed to be published. It is
the environment in which they have roan up, if a citizen wants data they should apply for
it an get a judicial position on whether or not to give it. If you are going to allow for
something like that what you have to do is to demonstrate that there is no threat to
publishing the data and really really hope that whilst you publish the data that the media
does not immediately grapple it an find a scandal. At least at the beginning because of the
fact that the data flow the governments tend to go back but if first of all you get into the
system an then after that then there is no problem, it is already there. The third aspect of
it is once you have published the data you have to really focus on building the consistent
and this is what we do at the open institute and echo system here we have first of all the
echo system of data producers, the Government civil society, ensuring a civil society in the
private sector, publishing the data as well. Media has access to a lot of data that we have
accumulated over many years to ensure that they begin to publish that data and the
academia who also have over the years gathered data from different sources and they also
publish it. Important to mention here at the I G F that there has been a lot of pressure by
civil society to get Government to publish it , its data. There has also been a lot of
pressure by civil society and citizens to get private sector to publish the data. I think one
sector that is yet to really get open is a civil society itself and I think that the time the civil
society is going to get away with it is fast coming to an end so I think the civil society has
to begin to lead from the front in being as open as possible where publishing the data is
concerned. The second echo system is of info media ris. A lot of the data yes you want the
citizen to engage. Quite a lot of the data is not in a format that allows the citizen to engage
cocoS you are providing the data in its rawst possible format. The best way to get the
citizen to have access and have an understanding of that data is by dealing with the info
media, which tends to be the civil society organisation that works with the citizens that
build the capacity that Mcwith community groups and so on. The media that are going to
tell interesting data stories out of it and then the developers who build aps that enable the
citizen to then interact with it. In Kenya and in a couple of other countries the open
institute has mkt with the world bank and are can media initiative and others to do things
like a data outcome for where we bring in three different sectors, we bring in the media of
course, the generallysts and editors and then you bring in members of the civil society
themselves and then you bring in developers to gather and you try and way them into
small teams that then not only learn how to publish stuff out of data, tell stories out of
data but also that gets them to actually develop stuff at the tail end of that training so that
ei get into building things and then the final echo system is one of users. Once these
applications, these means for citizens to begin to analyse this data and to play with data
and to use the data then you want to make sure that the citizen then begins to engage on
the business of data. One of the things that we saw recently by way of anecdote in Kenya
is our police commissioner went to speak to the team an when he was there the students
took him to task about the recruitments of the recruitment into the police force and they
were thinking people from this region are more than people from that region. What is the
case? There is not enough college students who are getting into the police force. Why is
it? What is the package and that sort of thing. An so he was reasonably shocked to
discover that because of the fact that people were had done their research before that
meeting he now knows for the future that he will not only go with Platt tiewts which is
what Government officials tend to go with for meetings with citizens but there will be
a lot more prepared now and they will be able to be a lot more accountable which is a by
product we were talking about. Once you have done this, the innovation is onoaing, the
users are working, their media study stories and that sort of thing, the other aspect that
you have to focus on, you are focusing on this things most likely simultaneously, the other
aspect is the legal frameworks which are benchmarked globally but I champion that they
must be, that it is more eem that they are focused on the local situation because the local
situation tends to be unique. A lot a lot of countries tend to look for best practice and
forget to customise it to their own specific environment. As a result adaptation of -adoption of the data tends not to be very high. In Kenya the legal framework looks like
this. Number one we have the constitution, that guarantees the citizen rights, the citizens
a right to information. Explicit. Number two, we have a cabinet paper that we did at the
time of the launch that tells the public sector how to publish data an that they need to look
for the data to publish it on a regular basis. It is a provisional document that essentially
sanctions the publish,ing of data and enables, because public sector tends not to be able to
do stuff unless there is a piece of paper that is showing certain policy that is showing
them how they are going to built this, so this cabinet paper has served that purpose. As
we work on a freedom of information bill and one of the most popular aspects of the
freedom of information bill in my view that is currently under review for Parliament is
that it proposes Government proactivity in publishing data. Now I have seen a lot of
freedom of information bills and a lot of them say, a are a little vague about this subject.
I am particularly advocating that whenever we are working on free tomorrow of
information bills of this nature and especially where they talk about open data that they
talk about two things: number one that the Government will proactively publish the data
which means that the citizens, there is no loophole for the citizen to need to apply or to
need to write a letter or, so first the proactivity question and then the second bit is to try
and say that the Government has to publish it with the prevailing, within the prevailing
technology that is available so as we heard from yesterday the Internet is likely to be
replaced by something else or some of these platforms are going T change and so on.
I apologise, I have a cold. But we have to ensure that the data is published in using
prevailing technologies meaning that if the country has a data portal the Government
does not just publish it using paper but they also make sure they publish Excel sheets on
the data portal and that sort of thing. Then we have the data protection bill that of course
deals with the privacy issues and the final thing is that all the data is provided under
creative commons licence which is free for use and reuse but with the requirement with
the proviso that you must acknowledge source which in my view is important because
then you provide credence to that data as well. Thank you very much.
>>: Thank you, Al, I am sure you get a lot of questions. Thank you for that rich outline of how
things worked and all your advice and suggestions.
Before -- it will be now probably useful to hear from Andrea how citizens can access
this open Government data and give us some examples of that.
>>: Thank you. And well actually it is really interesting listening to that presentation. You
mentioned a couple of words that came to my mind. You talk about ecosystems. So far
they have been looking at Government providing data and then you say that the different
(inaudible) and then you spoke about the intermediaries so how you actually get citizens
to know which data is out there and among the intermediaries you mentioned the media
which is an important job but I was waiting for (inaudible) which plays an eem role in the
ecosystem on the down side and that is libraries -- on the demand sie and that is libraries.
Just to give you an idea from a recent survey around 320,000 libraries world wiet and that
is basically an estimation that is most likely it is more than that an 73 per cent of these
libraries are in developing and tran sition countries and these are institutions for the
latterst part public funded that or access to information and knowledge and we think they
can play an extremely important role in accessing data. When we looked at the open
Government partnership and we look at the numbers of countries that actually in their
plans spoke about the ecosystem only three countries, including the UK, Ukraine and
Tanzania have conceded how a sitson can access those datas and only Ukraine mentioned
libraries as an important partner in this. But we think that libraries are often perceived as
a building where you find books and that is true, it is still like that but actually there is
much more potential inside them an we think that in the open data they can play an
extremely important role, particularly when you look at cost effectiveness of providing
access points to the citizens and also when you ensure that everybody has access to these
resources. Another thing that you mentioned before and rli liked it was when we cust
about and you said once you open up data accountability is there because transparency is
there and people are in power. I think there is a second, that you assume that once you
put datas outside then people will go there and look. I don't think it is a direct link. There
are many people that have no clue about than and maybe they heard about the media but
they don't have the interest and so it is what I think that here libraries can provide this
part it actually can make this link work perfectly and I have an example that I think can
demonstrate that. In Romania the Minister of agriculture produces an online application
to make subsidy quicker for the elpment of the rural areas they release the data for the
rural areas, all the land that wasn't used an they wanted to use the technology and data
for all the citizens apply. What happened is that farmers happen to have the tools,
actually were reached by these initiatives until A rand 400,000 libraries that was a project
where (inaudible) with whom we workstep in and suddenly 17,000 farmers were
informed about this programme but training to apply for this programme and actually
they apply to get subsidised land and make the whole project work. That is just a case to
give you an idea. I would like to (inaudible) and then engage in some discussion. I was
thinking about the role of libraries and data mining. It may be trivial but libraries have
been collecting since ever. Data is about who comes to the library to read what and to do
what basically and user is data is shared among libraries but is not always perceive and
used by Government institution and when you look in that plan where you intersekt an
education it is important I would like to point that. Another part of the library until we go
more into the role of open data and Government responsibilities, in the role of
Parliamentary libraries, all Parliaments world wide they have a library that stores all
proceedings and documents and laws and draft laws and bills for the activity of the
Parliament and these are datas out there, I mean they are not out there, they are in the
library but not with easily accessible. Usually you have to walk in there and figure out
how. Not long ago I was following the US and US politics and was browsing on my mobile
phone and I fand an ap which is called conres where you actually can download the ap on
your mobile phone and you can see each member of the Congress what bill he is working
on, which proposal he mate. You can either go there and click and call him if you want,
send an e-mail and I was thinking, look, libraries in Parliamentary libraries they all have
this information and once a country thinks about these environments or open data and
this approach to make them work and provide services to the citizen they should also
look it is also at the role the libraries can play. Just give you some example, for instance
with the Parliamentary libraries or la bris in rural areas an make sure librarians usually
already have a budget line in the public budget, get training to do that because they are
highly training professionals, they can be trained to help citizens in accessible data and
also they are trust professionals, the thing is that okay you put data out there but then you
ensure that at the back end there are people who can make profit of that, people can use
this data and here you have points distributed in the country with a really grant role of
distribution in some countries. Particularly I am thinking of in other countries long
tradition of libraries in rural areas all over. Then you Avenue have a track network of
trusted point of access to these things and I think that throw some issues -- thank you.
>>: Thank you Andrea, we will have time for questions so I think I would just like to now go to
Leonard to give us some examples of what he has been working on before we go to
Dominic and open it up to the floor for a real discussion.
>>: Thank you. And very nice of you to invite me by the way.
>>: Very nice F you to come.
>>: So I have been working on -- let me start, Dutch Government has last couple of years
development aid has been very much under pressure and actually in a new Government
that has just been installed this week there has been announced another cut back of
20 per cent of the budget for development aid. One of the reasons for that is I think that
the lack of accountability, the lack of clear results that have been seen and this has led to
some reevaluation of what the Dutch Government would want to be out there in terms of
information for the public, more account pi, more transparency so 2 years ago the reen
party in the Dutch Parliament had a motion to release all the data generated on which
projects are -- being mukt on and being funded by the Dutch Government and -- being
worked on -- and one year ago they went ahead and released that data based on that
motion that we did and I think that it is quite a limited set of data in the sense that it is
very interesting to see what which company, which organisation gets what amount of
money. It is not particularly interesting on the for the general public I think but it is very
useful to have in terms of for experts to figure out where the basically where the
competition is and also what works and what does not work. It also has the side effect of
being giving some level of account pi for foreign governments spinfd. Finally we get to
see how much money is actually going and into these other -- involved) other countries
and whatever happens with it that is a problem there is no clear information about the
results that have been generated with it so it is also very limited.
A year ago I wrote an ap by request of one of the development aid organisations in
the Netherlands using this information to try to get it to more general public and I think
that the general value in that is you can find more value by combining the data sources
and I think that is the trajectory that we have started on and we have now included a lot
of data from the world bank to try to make, give it more meaning for the people. What we
really found is the main problem in this data, this particular data is two-fold, I think, and
that is that it is very much internal data and I think there is a lot of work to be done there
and I would refer to Andrea's comment about the libraries I think somebody needs to
clean up this data because generally if it is anything to go by this specific data set the data
is a mess right now and it is completely ununderble for anybody outside of the
Government involved, ununder standable) there is heavy use of jargon, A pre vyaitions
that have no mining at all and I think it will take years before it becomes anything usable
so that is really interesting about all of this, where is this data, what does it mean? And
I come from a back ground in market research where we generally see the same types of
questions and of course there we are working to give the information in a very useful way
to our clients. But still you know if you have been in market research for a while you
know that you can torture data to make it say almost anything. I think that this is a very
huge risk in releasing this data. Now hiss data set specifically does not contain anything
personal. It is not even, you can't even use it to triangulate on a specific person. But you
can use it to triangulate on a certain politically sensitive project and foreign governments
will have the opportunity maybe to go in and into the data and use it to find, to locate
projects that are not, how do you say say that a gryeeble to them and I think we have seen
here in Azerbaijan, for instance what that might mean. I am not saying -- whatever. Let us
not go there.
I will keep it short but I want to refer to Al's comment that civil society has to be
open. We have now the first in the Netherlands the first organisation, eight organisation
that has also released the same type of data in the same format, open standard and that
will really help us to get further into the data and try to explain not only what comes out
of the Dutch Government but then her does it go from there? So we can try to really show
people what is the aid doing on a very low level, increasing of course the risk of politically
sensitive projects. We now have the data being published once every quarter. I think that
is not enough. We need to go beyond that and try to have as much realtime information
that we can get our hands on as long as we keep in mind all the risks involved, that you
have mentioned. And I think, I do think that we have to consider the risks involved with
releasing data that is maybe not personal, that might have been anonymised or might
have been aggregated to a higher level but it might still be used to triangulate on any one
person. For me it is, I think we are on a trajectory where we can do a lot to increase the
rationality of decision making and I think that is a good thing and -- well, again, in
reference to your point, Al, that is very important to start proactively releasing this and
not mate for motions in Parliament before you go ahead and publish anything. I think the
proactiveness will be very important and one last point, if I may, would be that open
standards should be prevailing in termses of how do you release this data because if you
don't use open standards and I know there has been a movement where people wanted to
be technologically neutral, the way that the data is being released which might be
meaning that it should be used by any close standard as well which might not be what we
want. I think I will leave it there and wait for your questions.
>>: Thank you so much for that very, for highlighting some new risks as well and for your
salient points as well as your recommendations and comments on Al's. We have Dominic
who I introduced earlier for people who are not in the room. She is tack pairs aligns,
think tank uin the UK an also sits on open data user group in the cabinet office in the UK.
>>: Thans for having me at late notice an I really really appreciate it and I am going to keep it
brief because we have some interesting discussions I think already out of the speakers
who have spoken about really interesting topics and it is interesting to see a number of
crossovers as well in the Mcthat I do. I am ging to talk a -- work that I do, I am going to tall
a little about the UK and open day because that is the perspective I come form I sit on the
open data user group which is a volunteer oop that sits within the cabinet office. By
appointment we hat to apply through an open process and there are 14 of us and from
Government and civil society which is my remit and a variety of other big businesses,
small businesses, businesses collecting data, businesses start up so it is quite interesting
but our role is, particularly interesting, in that we are advising Government on what data
should be open and I was particularly interested to hear Al because we have this what
I think is a rather cumbersome process of people that need to submit requests to data
dock which is where our data portal is in the UK. In order to suggest pick data sets that
they would like to use for a variety of reasons. A number of data sets have been opened
already I think at the last count there was over 8,000 I think, is that right? And so people
are -- and there are more that are coming out as well. There is a work stream within
Government to release more data but we are not proactively, the Government is not
proactively releasing data which is I think Kenya is well ahead of us on that front but so
we advise the Government in terms of what should be open but again the Government has
the UK Government has a particular needs for having data to be open, hit the remit of
economic growth and development so they are really interested in prosperity but they
really want to make sure that they can also look at the value that society will get that cnek
growth in the UK will get -- economic growth in the UK will get, based on what may be
open and projecting this and determining this as you know almost non-existent, it is
a really hard thing to do so we have this interesting situation where we are now looking at
trading funds which holds a lot of the core reference data mentioned earlier, including an
address file OS data and I hope we can talk a little bit more about that but we have
recently released a paper of the data users group suggesting that the -- and might be
taken wrongly in the media as I think again Al had mentioned. So I just wanted to kind of
highlight this is what we are going through and there is a higher strategy that is being
done also within data strategy board which looks at sort of the general policy around
opening data going forward an what that means and whether that is freedom of
information requests on demand so we have a lot of interaction with our stakeholders,
I mentioned an I will close with a couple of thoughts on civil society r as I mentioned, I am
liaising with civil society an I have been working with big an small charities as well as
local groups who may deal with issues around housing or child abuse or anything like that
and I am there to champion all those causes and it is very hard O capture absolutely
everybody in S vil society in England and Wales for this but it has been interesting
because while it is not civil society and social issues have not been a priority, as I went
shn in the UK Government, economic growth has I think there has been a lot of good
things happening around the awareness what benefits to society opdata can provide for
charities and better public services and for charities that can possibly take on and use
volunteers to deliver some services that on a local level that Government may not actually
have the ability to do. So I will stop there and I hope that we have a bit more interaction
and thank you once again.
>>: Thank you Dominic I will first check with the remote participation if we have received any
questions on line. If we can start with that.
>>: Hello, my name is, I am remote participation moderator for this room. At this moment
there are no questions and attendance. If this changes I will forward to you as the
panelists on the floor open to the questions. Thank you.
>>: Great, if there are many maybe you can just raise the white board. Thank you.
Now let us have the mike and we have some questions lined up. If we can get
a microphone over to you.
>>: Thank you. Can you hear me? My name is Omar, I am from Afghanistan. I am P of the
national ICT alliance of Afghanistan and in the meantime I Co founded and am board of
Director of the open portal alliance for central Asia. We are working on annual
conferences within central Asia. It is moving every year to a new central Asian capital so
that we can spread the message and let everyone know about the need of software and
the technologies as well as the open data and the open content in systems. One of the
challenges we are face i in central Asia, you know it is most of the countries are ex-Soviet
Union republics and some of the Governments are extremely conservative and they would
not open data in those countries, right? And it is quite a challenge for the advocates in
these regions to work with the Government and convince them to or to open up. My
question is what are the good case studies from other countries, how you advocate at
Government level so they are not scared of open in the data. They know the need for and
the benefits of opening data. What are these case studies in other countries.
>>: Thank you for that question, that economic and social benefits that should be explaining
quite explicitly, and to go back to your comments I have spoken to a gentleman from the
part of the world that you just mentioned that caused these difficulties inviting him to the
panel and they were saying open Government data all in one sentence it is usually the
open or Government or data but not together. Would anyone like to respond?
>>: I would say that from this panel probably Al who has got kite direct -- but I think in the long
term we should try to talk to you after the panel and give you some real help, but I don't
know if the panel wants to just give an overview of something, ee probably cannot cover it
in the workshop.
>>: No, I don't think I am capable of answering questions at this point but I haven't made a note
but I will speak to you afterwards.
>>: It is actually it is a great question because it is really hard to answer. I mean in the UK it is
something that there is a new open data institute that has just opened to provide for
training and startups and it is a hub not dissimilar from Kenya I hub I think in a lot of
ways where it is really going to focus on open data an out of that I think we will see some
case studies come out but also there is a report that Deloittes are writing on behalf of ODI
and the cabinet office to specifically highlight case studies like you mentioned and I think,
again, I can talk to you after but I would ee happy to share my details with you so that
I can send it to you but great question I think it is really heart.
>>: Just to say the one thing that works everywhere is try to find an ally from incite
Government at this the one thing everyone from her on you may vary how you work but
definitely finding sum-up inside that will be the champion.
>>: So Andrea and then par minder.
>>: Really quick now. Before even tot the word ee Government was really trendy and very nice.
Now already speaking about Government and I think that will be a way, an example of the
Ukraine former Soviet countries wanted to engage in a broad E Government and ensir
that they are modernising the structure and then they phase each of the data once we
engage the services of the citizens to the Internet then it is open data so it is also a good
example of a country so this is an entry point.
>>: It is also worth sp ating, if I may say, that the open Government data should provide the
basis when you start up companies to start looking at this data and providing applications
that would generate new business and works for the economic growth by getting some IT
activity and new companies to spring up using this data an basing their models on the
data that is open and available like me the maps and everything that Al mentioned. I think
we have another question.
>>: Thank you Desiree. I wanted to make another point but before that I would probably like to
answer the question my colleague from Afghanistan has raised and I come from India
with a very strong right to information movement, one of the sronst in the world, not only
in the developing world and I think it is important to know where to start from because,
one can be trying to go from the Afghanistan situation which I understand to open data
systems and that will be very difficult and I think two entry points one Andrea mentioned
is the very attractive thing you start automatic Government and then you A have small
entry points to try to get the data and the couldn't entry point is the right to information
act and preceded by the information act was the right to information movement in India
and how people start demanding those rights, where too those demands come from and it
is a pool me tht, you have to give the application and Paul the information, drastically
change the Government system in India. I think not to jump and reach what can be
esoteric big data systems when these steps are important is a big issue and now connect
this to the real point which I wanted to make. The dai A ta sm has to be seen as an echo
system, we try to make it seen as a technical system. We know that what is happening
here is the reallocation of power between those who hold information and those who
want information as a political transfer of power and when power changes we have to
focus on the different akr gaytions which come up and again an trear talked about the
demand sie and seeing it in too big a focus on the supply site when you provide asset,
actually meeting, how does it matter, you are only doing a good thing. Everything is
a balance, a lot of emphasis on this site I have seen has gone with the reduction of
emphasis on the community side about who is going to pull it, how are they going to pull
it and who are the intermediaries which enable people to access data an that is on the
dman site an there is also a new representationtional media which is developing the kind
of things you are talking about you are holding those data hubs or something, you know
which is the class, which are those people who are trying to represent reality to the rest of
the worlds, also media through certain interests an does this start represent in in certain
manners so understanding the power how it is getting we dyai t through a different data
echo system and placing the data echo system and seeing it political and not technical is
very central and thank you. I took longer than I should have and I apologise for that.
>>: Thank you. We have another question at the back.
>>: Can you hear me now. Okay, sorry. I am here wearing my (inaudible) hat. Just really
quickly from Afghanistan, so far ca zag stand and crg stand are most open to sharing data
for disaster risk production and leaving up that effort is going to be, so I will connect you
guys and you can continue the conversation. I have, I think I was just to follow up on
those comments, with colleague from an dya. If you kind of look pack back at some of the
beginnings of open data in the US, it was sort of like data up first and then it was like
people need tools to help process this data an so they were a bunch of widgets added
later, maybe 18 months later and I continued to think that the assumption of a lot of the
assumptions an open data are wrong about its usefulness to society and we have
a colleague in the world bank who started and created his own title, data Evan je list, open
data evangelist and I have been trying to convince him that we need more technical
means to take out the user experience, to fundamentally change the user experience with
the interface with the data which is online. So I have proposed to him something I called
the data which is essentially trying to cross the bridge the entire way using technical
means for the user such that they don't even realise that it is an open data experience,
that basically they just benefit fm something very specific. Anyway, I didn't mean to make
a really long comment. I have a question for the panelists, where are we right now in
terms of tools that process, present and give you sort of, give specific consumers, specific
data, where are we technically in terms of processing the data and helping it find a home?
Just to finish up, the day-to-day ideas, it is a little bit of a joke but a little bit serious,
combining the concepts and/or the software that match on dating Websites. If we know
something about you, we know your background, maybe so much information about you,
if there were tools which then could go and search the data and try to match something
about your background with the data which is available and then try to present it to you.
Anyway so my question is where are we with tools, technical tools that are available
publicly for individual citizens and/or the intermediaries like media which I think by the
way we tend to forget that we probably need to just rely on intermediaries and not I think
vit citizens going to an open -- individual citizens going to an open data site, finding data
and change their lives and purse spec tifs. Sorry to go on so long.
>>: Than you for that question on the tools.
>>: Just to not to provide a comprehensive answer to, I think the type of tools you are looking at
in terms of personal data, those tools to be in the hands of private companies that are
providing services so we talk about that yesterday, there are quite a few companies in the
US where there are less restrictions from things like corporate data and criminal records
history that will actually trawl from public records and build up your personal profile so if
I want to employ you tomorrow I will buy your life history to. Si whether you are suitable
and you don't have many tools in terms of citizens to do that for themselves and also
I think that you are tax in the question, you are thinking about matching Websites and
those algorithms and things we have to remember that everything we do here is data and
Al gritims and there is nothing else and we are looking at open data and we also prply
need to start looking at open Al ritims and in order to provide an open outlet system for
society to benefit from open data. We have been exploring that in fi fi superficial level but
I think that is goin to be the next big question. Jond the data benefiting society you are
going to have to go up to that level as well. Then of course there are many tools in terms
of (inaudibleisation. Unfortunately they tend to be either very simple or very complicated
so you need to build your own Website and AB Is for the open? Interbut I think that is
getting, there are more in the ones that you are looking in terms of matching where you
put your name and see what comes out. Some people in Germany they have been doing
some experiments with that sort of thing but it tends to be more about shock value, to
shock you into knowing how much you can find out about you.
>>: Andrea also had a comment.
>>: I had a big comment and thinking about this word about ecosystem I think at the moment
where you need to invest in the long term in what we call media information which you
have your citizen probably at full already, putting the problems and understand what is
data, what is open access to data and how they can use that which are the right, which are
the ways and libraries are working on that and also giving information for that variance
and how do you process, because the media can do that but at their own interests, in the
end they are out of the market and too that for, it is not a preservice and then I was
thinking about a case, I don't know, I it was interesting to look at (inaudible) for instance,
when they got the market place and 260,000 and they weren't able to just throw them out
like this. They had to go to the New York times to the guardian to the German newspaper
and ask them can you look at this and make relevant stories because otherwise we think if
you just throw them out it is not going to be that effective and that is what they did and
that is how everything sploa dt. Then A san the issues with the newspaper and they
decided to just release the hubs like that, they deleted the names but then I was thinking
at look at the difference when the New York times was there, pushing about the stories
from the logs it was everything I mean it was headlines newspaper, once the logs were
open up and you can go two hunt 60,000 logs then there is not a big pass any more
because the data out there like this would all be processed, even if pension extremely
important and interesting. They are not going to be used and myself I have been a few
times to the Mick be dya, Micky leaks, and that is (inaudible) -- wiki leaks).
>>: The theory with open data citizens, civil society and the private sector are going to provide
that interpretation. What you are starting to find there is a market failure in some areas
but actually the state has to come back and your colleague there was saying and start
providing their own tools for interpreting so it is not just raw data so they have to come
phant uds back an provide a widget or a report based on the data so there is, it is quite, it
is still a bit tricky you know but then again there is so much data, so many applications to
consider, everything is going to be developed and you come up tomorrow and you say
why no one has developed these things and who is to blame for that?
>>: I just wanted to quickly say that in Kenya certainly I can speak very confidently about
Kenya, there is quite a huge J proliferation of different maps that have decided to pick up
on the open data and different things. If you go on to the Kenya open data Website there
is a tab called community aps that you will see a list the at least the first few of them that
were listed there and there is still quite a number of them that have been developed since.
I was trying to find -- the reason I was quiet about this for a while is I was trying to find
a particular ap that I am excited about that came out in January when we did the data
boort camp. This ap was developed by a team of three people, one who was a journeyst,
one who is a developer and one who is a civil society person and they were interested in
figuring out why it is that girls drop out of school at the coast in Kenya and as soon as they
reach age 14 or thereabouts and everybody had a ready answer for it that it was because
of the fact that they are poor and they need to go an look for tourists on the beach. And it
was almost a given. When these guys actually went into the data a little bit more they
found that there is a correlation between the synergy, the state of the schools and the
drop out of the girls so as soon as they started getting their periods they would drop out
because of the fact that they did not have A good sanitary environment at the school so
they would be missing school three days, four days a week out of every month and then
secondly that T just their availability of sanitary towels for their use is also not available.
So these guys actually went and built this that showed the status of every toilet, every
sanitary facility in every school within the coastal province and as a result of that it
became the tool that is used by development sort of people to go and figure out where
they should allocate their resources well and in fact what happened with that is that
a group of NGOs had to focus came together around the ap and sort of began to
co-ordinate their activities so that there is better sort of development output out of their
programmes. So it is one of the interesting stories and I will still keep trying to find the
link for this and share it if I do find it but these are the sort of things that then come up.
Some of them like midAfrica will be for public usage and for you know almost retail sort
of perspective but others will be, other aps that I have seen being developed out of open
data have been very specific. Of course, you probably know about the where do my taxes
go in the US? And there is now one that has developed in Kenya about where the
budgetary allocations go. For example I would be able to to know how much I pay per day
for the services of a policeman based on my taxes and how they are allocated so these are
interesting things that people do. The key thing for anybody trying to do an open data
side is to once you have published the data, try and push innovation as much as possible.
Try an let the young people have access to that data. They are very Reverend in the way
that they deal with things and the reverence is a really important thing in helping people
make sense of it.
>>: You were basically asking about the maturity of the current state of the technical tools that
are available and I think that what I have seen is it is very much, it seems to be a strange
mixture of a sort of supply and demand side I mature pressure to start releasing things
and the reason that we requested as a green party to release this particular data about
development aid was that it would and the Government showed some enthusiasm for
releasing this particular data fare as they were very reticent, the neth S lanz is not the
most open country in the world if you can belief that even here so that I think that
particularly the demand side is really I mature right now and that there has been
a pressure that you can see that governments are starting to open up, there are quite a lot
of cam opinions also in the Netherlands popping up that say, hey we have this data, let us
release it but we don't have really a clear idea of how it is going to. I benefiting the users
and the users are not really asking for the data yet. I think that is going to change and
I think this is a first generation and in a couple of years this will be completely different
and particularly I think that the main economic benefit at least will be in integrating data
streams, preferably realtime data streams coming out of the Government into business
processes in a lot of companies that will increase, that will use it to increase value in all
sorts of mace. In terms of profiling that is quite a sinister way of doing it but I also think
that a lot of beneficial and very rational ways of iewings the data to enhance shareholder
value.
>>: I think it would be also following that it would be good to hear from maybe ja vyer or
Dominic, how did for example in the UK how it did they manage big policy verses hands
on approach. Are there any lessons learnt from that in part.
>>: I think that actually that is a very good question, I think it is again from what Al was saying,
don't let the perfect be the enemy of the perfectly good and I think that is I think that is
a very good way to go and then on the other hand we also think that we need to start
taking some strategic approaches as soon as you can and things like discussing data pech
frameworks. Not because they should be restricted but they should be ca foalt pins on
which you built your development so that is the thing to take a very positive approach to
this thing and also not to microlegislate or microregulate but take some big picture where
you may try to foresee what you may have conflict so I think these are very, very
important questions like how do you combine. I think at the moment in the open data
world we have seen a lot of the practical hands on approach and low hanging fruit, get
there what you get and in the UK now we are starting to see, starting to hit the walls in
some of these areas and I think that is for example the work that Dominic is doing on the,
you can explain how we stand to deal with some this when you don't get the data, there is
no low hanging froit.
>>: And I think that is the problem we have hit the low hanging fruit in the UK, we have got it
now, it is just releasing everything else and trying to get the project managers in the UK
and each department in the cabinet office saying and so on and so forth who are
responsible for releasing data an I have seen the three to 5-year plan and we are saying
no, like 2-month plan to release it, not three to 5 years and that is the kind kind of push
we have now. But to your point I just wanted to highlight. We talk a lot in our group, it is
not just releasing the data but it is data format, it is skills and innovation around using
data, it is a variety of other things that now need to come as in the UK it is getting mature
as well an I think part of that in the UK is also the growth of start ups that is happening
and the growth of innovation and you know investment into small start ups, supply round
open data and I can think of a couple of examples, transzortation being a the one that
everybody talks about in the UK, due diligence is a start up that deals with basically
aggregating company data and trying to pry open a little bit more companies house as
well. So I think that is my experience.
>>: These are great examples. We have probably time for just one more question before -- and
there is one coming there. Any other takers.
>>: I have a question I just wanted to point out that the night foundation this year there are
night news challenge fos for data journalism so I don't know how many A war decent,
maybe around six or so but they would be useful to follow to see what comes out of it.
>>: Thank you for that comment indeed. There is a Mike coming to your left.
>>: Can you hear me? I was referring back to the introduction you made around the change in
the name. Last year was public sector access to information, this year it is open data and
I was thinking about this issue of demand. Don't you think that still the problem is in the
name and still we talk about open data, we don't see the value of innovation, job creation,
growth, et cetera, it is not reflected there, it is still what is reflected her is Government
transparency and accountability but not the growth opportunity.
>>: Actually that is, it is not that clear cut. I mean I am one of the co-ordinators of the open
Government partnerships in society network UK and what happened there is that you
tend to have organisations that work on transparency, international article 19, people
that come from a ri sron framework, not on the technical aspect but more on the
involvement on the transparency site and actually their complaint is that open data is not
about, not enough about transparency, that it is all about innovation, about technical
standards so the way they see this is spleetly the opposite, saying that there are many
ways to look at it. Normally I deal with the opposite, why do we keep talking about open
data we should be talking about open gufr nnts, transparency, open data is seen as a point
that is mainly about economic development.
>>: Thank you for pointing out, we did start maybe five minutes later so if the organiser allow
us we still have two more minutes to carry on the discussion as well. Are there any more
questions for any of the panelists?
>>: Have you seen any cases where governments are publishing data that is not, that has been
changed before being published. So the assumption here is that the data published is
open an can trust it. So the question is can we trust the data that is published?
>>: I don't have any top of my head examples of data. Again, referring back to the work of
yesterday about quality, there are two issues in terms of quality, one is quality on the
bottom data. Is this, are the measurements, the figures trust worthy? That depends on
many cases. What people have found is you can have data that is irrelevant, at least the
point and then what you find in many cases the way that the data is structured and
organised around the information, for example what does these, you get a list of numbers,
what is the unit, as I was talking, like metres, kilometres, that sort of thing, meta data,
explanation to make the data useful tends to be bigger complaint than the actual accuracy
of the bottom, maybe it is because no one can actually challenge but I think in some areas
where there has been more challenge on the accuracies for example land registration,
Kath str, I know there are mistakes, someone goes (inaudible) and starts making maps
and when the onus of the land they see everything is wrong so you have to go back and
move all the things so causing, that sort of situation I can imagine that you will have as
more and more data gets open you will start getting, people start examining you will get
more and more challenges from the bottom line but at the moment it has not been the
main obstacle really.
>>: I, you know, my perspective is as follows that I haven't seen data being changed by the
governments that I at least have dealt with and from a motor vaition perspective I don't
think, well it has not been my experience, as soon as they A be to publish it that they will
bother to change the stage where most countries are at right now is that they are not at
the stage where they are publishing any data that they would not ordinarily publish
anyway. The issue around open data or in relation to the data that is published has been
more about data that is already available or within the public domain in say paper format
and that sort of thing that then is being even in a lot more depth and a lot more
electronically. So from that perspective the motivation for changing it isn't. However,
I have seen, especially at the point where you are negotiating what you want to take out
where a Government is saying I will give you this entire data set, except for this chapter,
this pick one I am not prepare to iv you because of the fact I consider it sensitive for for
reason, maybe I don't consider it sensitive, I am just not confident about sharing it out so
I will not share this, but you can have all the rest, that sort of thing, so by the time they do
agree to publish it on line even my view is that it tends to be fairly accurate and a lt of the
data cue ra tours tend to have a lot of pride in the accuracy of the data anyway.
>>: On a very practical level in many situations the problem is not so much that they change the
data but they don't, but that they actually don't change the data meaning that you know
obviously governments statistics are alive, every year, they get something that from
a practical point of view is very important is to be able to have versioning of data and
have a very clear way of saying this data set is going to be, you have regular publication
dates or you have something in the meta data or a way of tracing back the latest data,
whether you are going to start practical applications, things like release management, you
really need to know whether you are working with the latest version and in many cases
that is not as well managed as it should be, that is the problem right now.
>>: And maybe if we are getting closer to the end of the session it would be probably good to if
any of each of you could wrap up and say how much was the contribution from all
different multi-stakeholders in civil society governments and private sector, who is the
leader or how do they work together and is it always civil society pushing private sector
and Government or has there been initiative from Government to develop an open
Government data plan, maybe about the interaction multi-stakeholder. We heard a lot
about ecosystems ants how it marked in Kenya and provided a lot of results but if you had
a key message to send out to others who are struggling with getting first the legal
framework and the freedom of information act sp laid out in their, in their places, how
would you recommend stakeholders will go about it? Who would like to start first?
>>: With regard to participation in Kenya we have what we call a (inaudible) sort of thing, we
have a task force that I had the privilege of dealing with and it was a task force that hat
members from the Government, from the civil society and the private sector and actually
and the media and in general a lot of the stuff that we have done particularly has been in
sort of formation. As to the second question you know I don't know how to answer it. Do
you want to C it differently?.
>>: What difficulties are you finding?
>>: You know the difficulties that we have found have been difficulties, you know the
gentleman from India set this is about power so it is always about negotiation and that is
where the trick has been for us, where it is about the negotiation and the argument that
you make to the different people so you will find that the argument that I will make for an
MP to convince an MP to get on board may not be the argument because they have
different fears and they have different points of objection so the reason that I was having
difficulty is because of the fact that to some extent there is a certain level of talking points
that are similar to everyone else but how it is presented is extremely important. Now the
biggest challenge I have, especially where civil society is pushing we tend to go at
Government (the microphone has died) and in fact I have positions where we see the
process, but it is so easy you should be able to do this, it is the only way to do it is this, this
and this and therefore not ->>: Just to follow up on that, in the UK right now we have some really I would say it is actually
an excellent framework in without sounding like a here leader for the UK Government but
we are right now we are having an open policy making framework with the cabinet office
where we are developing the national action plan for the open Government in partnership
in the UK where we sit every Thursday, we sit together and actually we are really working
very, very closely with people in Government and we want to avoid any capture in other
countries that can be seen as corrupt but if you do it properly I think it is working very
wrl Dominic is in one of the multistakeholders, there are others the problem I would say
is that we still don't have a very good integration of all these different bodies so we know
actually Dominic and I very few people have the full pure lts picture of what is going on,
what is in cyber space and I think the in te raih is something we will need but for me the
three things involved in multistakeholders, in terms of businesses I think the issue for me
would be there are some businesses innovative and they really understand data
innovation getting there, then however incumbent large businesses, three letter database
providers, but there are a few that will come in and say, yes, open data is great, we have
been basically taking lots of money from Government for 20 years, let us see how we
make this enable us to take money for the next 20 years, that T is an issue and then in
terms of the Government, the promise is we see Government as a bit monoly tick in terms
of political parties I would like to see more political parties saying we will all in favour of
open data but it is why and my specific political programme ,unfortunately none of the
political party conferences in the UK explain that and in terms of civil society again we are
still a bit fragmented, some people see their neeh as transparency, other people see their
neeh as environment and we are not getting that level how we are going to develop so
that is my lessons.
>>: Thank you, Leonard you spoke about open standards and I wonder, we heard a really good
message from Leonard about necessity to use open standards. Is there any other points
you would like just to mention as a last thought?
>>: I do think that if we are going to go anywhere with -- we are going to need to address all
these issues of combat pi and whatever, technically it has to work, obviously it is going to
work. I am also confident of that because it just does not make sense to do it any other
way. I think in the Netherlands we see that it is, the Government does definitely have
some champions, also slightly superficial in a sense that certain politicians, certain groups
within Government have adopted a very positive attitude towards opening up. Others
I think, there is not really yet a general idea, a general vision of where to go and we have
had and the green party has hat to come up with an initiative proposal in Parliament to
change the current freedom of information act and I would be doubtful that actually it will
lead us anywhere but we were one of the first countries in the world to have one but it is
now completely outdated and really being co-opted by a lot of governments, local
governments, particularly to promote secrecy instead of openness so I think that there is
a huge challenge that we have to that we are facing and pressures is definitely mostly
coming from civil society to keep opening up and we need to develop the demand side
a lot further before we can get anywhere.
>>: Thank you so much and Dominic would you like to say a few words.
>>: Sure I think you have said a lot of what I was thinking but I think there is a couple of things,
first of all communication and just understanding, joined up communication and
understanding what everybody is working on is really key because we do have a lot of
groups. I think in some mace but that speaks too bigger issue and which I think around
this in the UK there is a lot of focus on the process and a lot less focus at the least at the
moment on the delivery of data and I hope that there is less process and a little more
delivery in the near future so I will just leave it at that for a brief comment.
>>: Thank you and Andrea just not to cut you.
>>: Really I think that think about the environment, think about the demand sie and how we get
to the enthusiasm, offering and things like that, think about the lead information, the
importance of getting citizens being able to process the data and don't be scared of
involving and in a way let us, once they are empowered to come out with the use of this
data came out of my mind a really quick example from a book actually came out from
a researcher at the Harvard medical school, Chris ago si was able to access the medical
library of a small town in Massachusetts and had records of people, different held data for
40 years and through these we could figure out that basically, for instance, these are
transmittable disease and he came out with the whole book on how people in this country
became obese because they were hanging out with other -- they are just (inaudible) to
how you can see.
>>: I am going to leave it at that and so I would really like to thank all our panelists and for your
patience and your questions and contributing to our panel, thank you all very much. Nmp
even more important, thanks for coming at 9 o'clock. (end of workshop)