How to encourage release of data?

“Open data” and “open government” have become buzzwords in recent years, but are often conflated. Mark Headd at the Civic Innovations blog refers to the “Open Data vs. Open Government” debate, which he considers an issue of data for transparency vs for “operational” needs. He emphasizes the need to keep in mind that the original objective of the open data movement was transparency, and warns about getting lost in bus schedules, etc.

As an example of data for transparency he gives the City of Philadelphia’s release of complaints against Philadelphia police officers. Most probably agree that police complaints are not a good thing and might provide clues into bad behavior. However even in this case one should be careful about stressing the transparency/accountability angle, since this easily creates the conception that the goal is to find wrongdoers, whereas what should be the goal is to learn. If there are systematic factors affecting complaints, it would be valuable to learn about them. And even in the absence of these, a complaint does not imply a presumption of guilt, that is for other investigations to determine.

If someone fears being subjected to unfair criticism, that is a legitimate motive for non-cooperation.

Two collections of interesting urban government datasets can be found here.