Open data in Queensland

The Policy

Queensland’s Open Data Policy was released in September 2017. This nice and succinct document (two pages long), highlights the benefits open data will bring to Queensland and the actions government agencies need to take to meet the policy requirements.

The Policy is in line with the principles identified in the International Open Data Charter, namely:

1. Open by default

2. Timely and comprehensive

3. Accessible and usable

4. Comparable and interoperable

5. For improved governance and citizen engagement

6. For inclusive development and innovation

Why open data for Queensland

Like most governments around the world, Queensland recognises the power and value of open data. Specifically, the objectives of the Open Data Policy are to:

• “Stimulate economic activity and innovation by making government data available for commercial reuse

• Improve public services by using and sharing government data to support evidence-based policy and program design

• Increase transparency, accountability and public trust in the Queensland government.”

Actions

The Policy includes eight key actions to meet the above objectives and to reflect the International Open Data Charter. Specifically, the Queensland Government has committed to:

1. Making non-sensitive data open by default

2. Making data available as application programing interfaces (APIs) so it’s easier to access and use

3. Conducting an annual review

4. Creating a public data listing (broken into three distinct groups of data — high-value datasets, non-sensitive datasets that aren’t available (yet), and sensitive data sets that will not be available/open)

5. Anonymising datasets where appropriate

6. Building data skills within government organisations in Queensland

7. Supporting GovHack events

8. Ensuring all new systems support open data

Salsa Digital and open data

Open data is an important part of the open government movement informing policy, providing greater transparency and encouraging co-production with citizens. In fact, open data is one of Salsa’s four service pillars for open government. The other ones are open content management systems (open CMS), open platform and open design.

Open data can deliver many benefits to Australia and our citizens, which is one of the many reasons why we're so passionate about open data (read What is open data? for more information). We’ve also been working in this space for some time, for example, working on Victoria’s Open Data Portal.

It’s great to see Queensland putting open data front and centre in their digital policies.