Open data at ChangeCamp Edmonton
I’ve had a few days to digest everything I took in at ChangeCamp Edmonton, an unconference that I attended last Saturday. I still feel inspired.
Choosing from a grid of open discussions about participation and collaboration between citizens and government pitched by attendees on the day, the sessions I attended at ChangeCamp Edmonton emphasized a new openness and transparency between people and the institutions that represent us.
I intend to blog about other sessions I attended, but to start with I need to get these lingering thoughts about Mack Male’s open data session off of my chest:
(for those unfamiliar with open data, check out the related links at the end of this post and the open data wikipedia page)
The problem of privacy
Unfortunately, the conversation seemed to get bogged down with privacy issues, which I agree are a legitimate concern anytime we’re dealing with data relating to individual citizens.
The problem is that even with personal identifiers stripped from the data, resourceful data mining detectives could potentially cross reference many seemingly unrelated databases to piece together enough circumstantial evidence to pin point someone’s identity. This is a legitimate concern and a place where I believe a moratorium on open data relating to individual citizens should exist until these privacy risks can be adequately considered and addressed.
But what about public data?
Nearing the end of our 45 minute session, I looked up from my laptop note taking to make this point: is this focus on privacy the wrong conversation to be having? Can’t we a make a clear distinction between data about citizens and data about our public institutions and how they function?
In any democracy there is an expectation of transparency for elected officials and public institutions, so let’s get started on open data by opening up data about, and created by, these institutions and making it more accessible.
Creating transparent institutions
I posed a second – mostly rhetorical – question to the group of about 40 people, (which included Government of Alberta and City of Edmonton employees): If we want to look through the details of specific expenditures in an expense line on a budget for a public office or institution, why shouldn’t that be possible if the technology is available (which it is) and the cost isn’t prohibitive (which it isn’t)?
Public data is currently released in a heavily formatted, edited and “locked” format like a PDF. We’ve paid for our governments and institutions to collect that data, why shouldn’t they make it available in a format that facilitates editing an analysis by citizens?
Recent complaints from journalists trying to make their way through the federal government’s labyrinth of stimulus spending is another compelling reason why it’s time we demanded data be accessible in an open format from all levels of government.
Citizens as investigators of the “long tail”
Kevin Kuchinski made a great point nearing the end of the initial open data discussion: there are huge amounts of data collected stored on paper by all levels of government already.
The problem becomes obvious with this question: Do citizens file freedom of information requests for fun?
My sense is that the fees, delays and hassle prevent all but the most dutiful citizens from looking through our existing public data in their spare time.
The necessity of combing through reams of paper looking for the proverbial “needle in the haystack” is the why we’ve needed highly dedicated professional investigative journalists to discover important secrets and hold our institutions accountable.
I’m proposing that we implement policies that make it easy for anyone to be Woodward and/or Bernstein in their spare time.
We need to tap into the “long tail” of expertise outside government. But to do so we will need to elect leaders that legitimately value transparency enough to work with citizens to create a wikipedia style community interested in using their spare time to make our public institutions more efficient, transparent and accountable.
I love this goal.
Real transparency has the potential to be more a transformative, non-partisan game changer than, for example, a provincial fringe party electing a new seemingly capable leader ever will. *cough* #WAP *cough*
Some slight reservations
But there’s one dark cloud: Lawrence Lessig’s recent cautionary analysis, “Against Transparency”
Essentially Lessig is saying that open data about public institutions must take place in the context of a movement of people focused on fixing problems as they are discovered, lest open data lead to disillusionment and breed further cynicism and apathy. Luckily, we’re are meeting that bar by bringing citizens together to discuss these issues, one unconference at a time.
Lastly, let me reiterate my thanks to all the participants, organizers and sponsors that made ChangeCamp Edmonton such an enormous success.
Related links
Mastermaq’s open data blog post
DJ Kelly on open data in Calgary
David Eaves on the three laws of open government data
