The U.K. Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 now requires public sector organisations to publish open data in a format that is standard and re-usable. Raw data that can't be used without further requests won't cut it any more. Neither will data that are available "electronically", but only in a format that fails to meet open standards.
Goodbye .pdf files, hello .csv files!
This is good news. Of course, there's a kicker - the amendment to the Act allows the public sector to charge for this service.
This development stands in juxtaposition to Statistics Canada initiative of late 2011 (see here), whereby more data are now being offered without charge, but the data aren't necessarily available in a ready-to-use format.
I guess we're making progress here!
This development stands in juxtaposition to Statistics Canada initiative of late 2011 (see here), whereby more data are now being offered without charge, but the data aren't necessarily available in a ready-to-use format.
I guess we're making progress here!
© 2012, David E. Giles
