The federal government launched a new open data portal Thursday, making more than a quarter million sets of data available for free.
"Raw information and data that departments accumulate in huge amounts is now going to be available in an accessible manner," Treasury Board President Stockwell Day announced at a news conference in Vancouver.
The site, available now at data.gc.ca, is a one-year pilot making more than 260,000 data sets available from 10 participating government departments. Over time, all departments will be expected to participate, said Day.
Day said the site will assist academics with research and allow companies to create things like smartphone apps that make government data more accessible to the public.
"Government data can be repurposed for any number of uses depending on, really, the imagination of people who want to access it," Day said.
Some of the information already available on the site includes immigration processing times, greenhouse gas emissions and a list of soldiers from the First World War.
David Eaves, an open-data advocate from Vancouver who worked with Ottawa on launching the site, said at Thursday's news conference that it was an "important first step" in making government information more accessible.
However, in an interview later, he said he had serious concerns about the legal licence that governs how people can use the data -a licence he said he hadn't seen until this week.
That licence prohibits using the data "in any way which, in the opinion of Canada, may bring disrepute to or prejudice the reputation of Canada," or identifies an individual, organization or business.
Eaves said both restrictions are "unprecedented" and unlike anything he's even seen on a government open data site.
As written, said Eaves, the licence would seem to forbid public-interest uses of government data such as identifying heavy polluters or companies that routinely violate product-safety regulations.
And the ban on bringing disrepute to Canada could discourage use of the data by journalists and others in ways that criticize the government.
"From a business perspective, and from an accountability and journalistic perspective, those terms are a major impediment," said Eaves.
Asked at the news conference about the restrictions, Day said they were added on the advice of government lawyers to reduce legal liability, and in his view didn't prevent criticism of the government.
"If someone wants to use that data to show that something can be done in a better way, that's absolutely the type of thing we want to see," he said.
Day's spokesman Jay Denney later said in an interview it was never the government's intention to limit freedom of expression and that the section on "disrepute" would be removed from the open-data licence.
Denney couldn't say whether the section on identifying businesses would also be changed.
The U.S. and British governments have had open data portals for several years and the City of Vancouver launched its open data site last year.
The B.C. government still doesn't have one. Premier Christy Clark promised during her leadership campaign to create such a portal.
However, in an interview, the new B.C. minister for open government, Stephanie Cadieux, said while her ministry is working as quickly as possible, she couldn't provide "an actual date or timeline" for when B.C.'s site would launch.
Vincent Gogolek, executive director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, said while the federal open data site is welcome, it does nothing to address the Conservative government's long record of frustrating Access to Information requests.
At Thursday's news conference, Day was asked about reports that the government is considering increasing the fee charged for Access to Information requests from $5 to $10.
He said the government had "absolutely no plans" to increase the fee
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Ottawa+launches+extensive+open+data+portal/4462672/story.html#ixzz1H7FMkwiN
