Lagenda Temasek

The Obama administration has been rushing to make all sorts of government information available to the public through data.gov ever since the President came to office. Asian governments have not been doing so too. But not with quite the same fervour. Political, legislative and governance differences aside, could there be cultural resistance to setting government information free in Asia?

A Singaporean government official, who wanted to remain nameless, told FutureGov that Singapore is conservative not only in its approach to releasing government information, but “in how we classify documents. Unless those mindsets change, the data won’t be made easily available.”

There is cultural resistance to exposing data, he said. “Agencies may have errors in their data and they are worried that exposing the data may open them to embarrassment.” The same was probably true in the US, he suggested, but agencies have been pushed to make data available because of the Freedom of Information Act, which requires government information to be made available on request.

Earlier this month, Singapore launched the US$1.8 million OneMap initiative, which gives citizens and businesses free access to the island’s geospatial data through the portal onemap.sg. But OneMap does not go as far data.gov in making new and more kinds of data freely available to the public, says Harish Pillay, Open Souce Evangelist at Red Hat Asia Pacific.

“What data.gov does is put new raw data out,” he said. “What OneMap is doing is create a site using government data that competes with what’s already out there, such as Google Maps.”

However, Pillay said that to compare the US with Asia on open data is not helpful. “It presupposes a whole slew of prerequisites; that data can be made available, and that the various government agencies and departments can and will co-operate.”

“Even with the US system, there is no guarantee that all data will be available, he said. “They [the US] are ahead of the pack, because the President they now have sees value in data when it is made publically available.”

Governments are in a transitional stage right now with data, Pillay added. “They each have to come to terms with the value of transparency of data and let the population be the determinant of how that data is used. It is not easy for governments to see if there is ROI. But it is a conversation we all have to have so as to make the business of governing and being governed that much more accountable.”

Not everyone is convinced by what open data can deliver for government, nor by data.gov. “When the US started out, they carefully selected the data sources. Much of it was useful stuff that people could mashup to create interesting new things,” said the Singapore official. “But many US agencies have now been dumping data without any curation or good cataloguing. There are thousands of data sets, but finding anything useful is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I’m not sure how government can reap the benefits of open data,” he said. “It seems to provide a foundation by which private entreprise can think of new stuff to do with the data that is more compelling. Some libraries in the world are now talking about creating data libraries so that this type of data is properly managed.”

The way forward seems to be towards more open data for most developed countries. In his opening address at the FutureGov Forum Hong Kong, the territory’s Government Chief Information Officer Jeremy Godfrey said that open data would be a strategic priority for his department this year.

“Historically, government has charged for its data. But should we?” mused Godfrey. “No one should have a monopoly on data. We think there will need to be a change in policy because when we should, and when we should not, charge for information is becoming increasingly complicated. OGCIO will be launching pilot projects this year to determine policy on open government data. “We are heading towards a more liberal policy approach,” he said.

In China, there is a push by the government to become more transparent, improve citizen services and boost public credibility, Meng Xianghao, Deputy Division Chief, Ningbo Municipal Information Industry Bureau told FutureGov. “But open government data is still very much in its infancy in China, and the release of information is restricted to carefully selected policy reports,” he said. “How to meet the demands of the masses as much as possible without divulging sensitive content is a big challenge.”

http://www.futuregov.net/articles/2010/apr/27/cultural-resistance-open-govt-data-asia/