Open Data in the Province of Ontario, Canada Bahrain International eGovernment Forum Samantha Liscio Corporate Chief Strategist Government of Ontario, Canada April 8-10, 2013 1

Ontario: Quick Facts  Population :

13M,

39% of Canada’s population  Nominal GDP: $655B, 37% of Canada’s GDP  400+ municipalities  Toronto is 4 th largest city in North America  Diverse population, 28% born outside of Canada  93% of Ontarians have Internet access  27% deal with an Internet-only bank 2

Ontario: Federated IT Shared Services Model $135M Permanent annual savings since 2007/08 8 Business ‘clusters’ serving similar ministries $ $989M Spent in 2011 on IT 1 Consolidated infrastructure 7 200+ Websites consolidated 79 High-risk legacy systems remediated 001100 63 Data sets published on Ontario.ca/opendata 4,728 IT staff serving the Ontario Public Service  95% Customer satisfaction rate with IT Service Desk 3

Ontario’s IT Evolution: Open Government

Ontario, 2013

Emerging imperatives for governments: transparency, innovation, productivity, sustainability.

Public expectations – same level of service and ease of use from government as from private companies 4

Open Government Driver: Legal Obligations • •

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act

to provide a right of access to information to protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information 5

Open Government Driver: Benefits The European Commission quantified the economic potential of data release at over €33 billion a year.

Open Data White Paper. UK Cabinet Office

Open weather data in the United States is supporting a $1.5 billion industry.

Jay A. Clayton. “The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption”

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Open Government Driver: Expectations “Policy development should be more evidence-based – with clear objectives set based on sound research and evidence – and relevant data collected and used to evaluate programs.” Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, February 2012 7

Our Call to Action: Ontario ‘behind’ others Ontario is following fast in key initiatives but lagging behind UK, US and other leaders in Open Government 8

Ontario Open Government: Information + Data

Open Information

    Web modernization & consolidation  Routinely and actively  releasing government information Open information & consultation portals Social media policies & guidelines Modernized information management policies & practices FOI Modernization Initiatives

Open Data

  Open Data Portals:  High value data  A centralized catalogue   Open license Visualization & web mapping Tools Engagement:  Online engagement to  increase use Hackathons/ Application Development events 9

Where We Are Today: Ontario.ca/opendata 10

1 Where We Are Today: 5 Steps to Publishing Data 2 3 4 5

Step 1: Identify Data Step 2: Assess Data Step 3: Prepare Data Step 4: Get approvals Step 5: Publish!

• • •

But…

Nervousness about risk On-going dialogue on open licence Only non-contentious, ‘easy’ data published so far – need to determine data value 11

Where We Are Today: Use of Open Data Two days after the Open Data catalogue was launched, a data journalist used Ontario data to inform citizens on the quality of drinking water by analysing and overlaying the data on Google maps.

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Challenge: Assuring Value Currently available data sets are non contentious and have been used, but…  Demand for government open data is focused on economy, demographics, and employment*  Local consultations to identify and support local demand  Engaging data community (researchers, computer developers) to identify high value datasets  Initial feedback indicates high demand for environment, health, transportation and education data.

* Research by Deloitte on the UK Open Data catalogue

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Challenge: Common Licence 14

Challenges and Mitigation Strategies Publishing challenges (data accuracy, privacy, security)  Mitigation: Ontario data sets are assessed by each ministry and centrally to ensure they do not undermine privacy, security, copyright or government credibility and that they uphold commonly accepted standards for data quality Common Open Government licence  Mitigation: Ontario working with the Federal government, Alberta and British Columbia to reach an agreement on a common national licence template Risk of ‘harm’ (data used for nefarious purposes)  Mitigation: Addition of “no harm” clause as part of licence; mandatory acceptance of ‘Terms of Use’ 15

Program Status April 2012

Phase 1 Develop Supporting Materials & Process Develop Open Data License

• New Open Data Terms of Use • Open Data Publishing

Guidebook

December 2012

Phase 2

November 2012

Launch Open Data Catalogue

• 63 datasets Spring 2013

Consult Internal & External Stakeholders

• High-value datasets identified • Internal advisory committee and community of practice

Evolve Platform/ Catalogue Functionality Publish High-Value Content

• Data visualizations and web-mapping functions • Common National Licence Template • ~ 200 high-value datasets from multiple ministries 16 16

What’s Next: Addressing Challenges

Additional functionality, including search and data visualization Updated Policies to support a culture shift towards a “share first” philosophy New Partnerships across sectors (government, academia, business)

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Open Data in the Province of Ontario, Canada Bahrain International eGovernment Forum Samantha Liscio Corporate Chief Strategist Government of Ontario, Canada www.ontario.ca/opendata [email protected]

@sliscio 18