Open Government Data—Changing the way Government Works

July 2, 2015

Author: tuhin

The very genesis of Open data which is machine readable information at the disposal of Government has been stimulated by Citizen’s demand for accountability and their desire to uphold their rights through tangible actionable evidence and information. This data which is collected over a period time catering to the various administrative processes of the government when made available to the public in an Open format through a dynamic platform increases its potential and value exposing it for further analytics with interesting results. The very idea of Open Government Data has generated a great deal of excitement around the world for its potential to empower citizens, change how government works, and improve the delivery of public services.

Governments which are often considered to be indifferent towards sharing of the huge volume of data and information with the larger public, now have to act towards making its data available to the public at large. Therefore, the acceptance of Open Government Data is changing the way the government looks at the very information it generates how this can be used as a tool to empower the citizens at large. The very idea of exposing of data and information has been debated over the years by skeptics who attaché values of sensitivity and security with data and often forecast disastrous results banking of notion of security.

This analogy or notion has been prevalent for some time, but lacks water when one looks at the hard facts. On the issue of data sensitivity it is quite evident that major chunk of data which is at the disposal of government is actually insensitive data which does not have any disastrous fallout if exposed to the larger public. This is further corroborated by the laws and conventions when they are applied to this data which do not consider the government data sharing as illegal, rather the unwillingness on the part of government agencies to share insensitive data is a clear violation of rights which a citizen possess. Therefore, the very notion of insecurity which is attached to the releasing of data is totally uncalled for.

Governments are changing the way they function, the need for evidence based planning and decision which is further opened up for citizen audit is the new mantra towards a sustainable and inclusive growth which boosts of transparency and accountability. Data and information is considered the tool for change and emancipation. In an age where the growth of IT and digitization is an inevitable feature, the syncing of administrative machinery with the digital technology is an eventuality. The basic bedrock of this eventuality is the generation huge amount of data and information in digital format; it is this data which is slowly but surely becoming an agent for change and upliftment.