Open@Krishworld

It is now well known how Open Data plays a vital role in creating an open society. There are many instances where open data has played a crucial role in ensuring fairness in a society. In a recent TED talk, Sir Tim Berners-Lee pointed out to various examples of mashups created using open data and particularly highlighted about government data and the role of open geo data in helping the earthquake ravaged Port au-Prince.

Now David Eaves, a public policy advocate and one who evangelizes strongly for Open Government Initiative, has put up a blog post offering a case study on the role played by open data in reducing the fraud under the name of charitable organizations. It is a great case study offering a glimpse of how open data coupled with Linus’ law on more eyeballs making bugs shallow, can help an open society. It is a great case study and I strongly recommend you to read the blog post.

In the computer world there is something called Linus’ Law, which states: “given enough eyeballs, all bugs (problems) are shallow.” The same could be said about many public policy or corruption issues. For many data sets, citizens should not have to make a request. Nor should we have to answer questions about why we want the data. It should be downloadable in its entirety. Not trapped behind some unhelpful search engine. When data is made readily available in machine readable formats, more eyes can look at it. This means that someone on the ground, in the community (like, say, Toronto) who knows the sector, is more likely to spot something a public servant in another city might not see because they don’t have the right context or bandwidth. And if that public servant is not allowed to talk about the issue, then they can share this information with their fellow citizens.

In US, after the current Obama administration took steps for opening up the government data, we saw how open data played a role in tracking how the stimulus money was spent. There are way too many examples of the role played by open data in promoting an open and fair society. It is time we demand open data in all facets of life.