A few days ago, the World Wide Web Foundation established by Sir
Tim Berners-Lee released the second edition of the Open
Data Barometer, a report on the impact and prevalence of open
data initiatives around the world. Turns out the UK government is the
“most
transparent” in the world, when it comes to public access to
official data, with US and Sweden in second and third place
respectively.
That’s fantastic, isn’t it? Opening the data (which already belongs to the public, as it is produced with taxpayers’ money) can expose corruption and abuse, provide new insights on sensitive topics, help engage citizens in important debates, improving, in the end, the overall quality of democracies. So, kudos to the British and God forgive the Kenyans, whose country has fallen from to 22nd to 49th in the Barometer’s rankings. Shame on them. Or, at least, that’s how the prevailing narrative goes.
There’s undoubtedly a lot of truth in this position. Transparency can help keep public servants, or evenprivate companies accountable for what they do. However, the very idea that data can be a tool of change highlights the fact that it is not “neutral”. The release has an impact on society and the kind of impact it has depends a lot on the way it’s done, by whom and for what reasons. The concept that the more you release, the more you benefit, while not wrong, might at least be a little simplistic.
Source:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2015/01/27/the-dark-side-of-open-data-its-not-only-how-much-you-open-but-how-and-why/?ss=data-companies
That’s fantastic, isn’t it? Opening the data (which already belongs to the public, as it is produced with taxpayers’ money) can expose corruption and abuse, provide new insights on sensitive topics, help engage citizens in important debates, improving, in the end, the overall quality of democracies. So, kudos to the British and God forgive the Kenyans, whose country has fallen from to 22nd to 49th in the Barometer’s rankings. Shame on them. Or, at least, that’s how the prevailing narrative goes.
There’s undoubtedly a lot of truth in this position. Transparency can help keep public servants, or evenprivate companies accountable for what they do. However, the very idea that data can be a tool of change highlights the fact that it is not “neutral”. The release has an impact on society and the kind of impact it has depends a lot on the way it’s done, by whom and for what reasons. The concept that the more you release, the more you benefit, while not wrong, might at least be a little simplistic.
Source:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2015/01/27/the-dark-side-of-open-data-its-not-only-how-much-you-open-but-how-and-why/?ss=data-companies
