Empowering people with open data
Publication Date/Time
2019-04-03T09:00:00+00:00
Country
Europe
How open data enables citizens to make more informed decisions and
engage with governments
INCREASED ACCESS TO OPEN DATA

There is more open data available now than ever before. With the
launch of the European Data Portal
[https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/] in 2015 and national open data
portals (i.e. data.gov.ie [https://data.gov.ie/] and data.gov.be
[https://data.gov.be/en]), thousands of datasets have become publicly
accessible. The core aim of these open data initiatives is that anyone
can access, use, and share the data. From citizens to data-driven
journalists, entrepreneurs, researchers and businesses; anyone can
access and re-use open data for any reason.

FROM DATA TO INSIGHTS

Access to open data enables multiple parties to analyse the same
datasets and uncover new insights from them. Depending on the user,
the purpose and the user's activity with the data, different insights
can be derived from open data. For example, open data can be analysed
and visualised in a way that it can reveal certain patterns within the
dataset or multiple datasets can be aggregated to gain a multi-faceted
view on an issue. With open data, translating data into insights is no
longer restricted to the provider of the data. Instead, anyone who can
access data can gain insights.

FROM INSIGHTS TO DECISION-MAKING

Insights derived from open data, can be distributed, communicated or
shared with a broader public and can serve as an input for citizens to
make informed decisions. Open data on parking spots, for example, can
be used in an application to inform users on average waiting time or
to send notifications when a specific parking spot opens. Based on
these insights, users can decide where to park their car or to go by
train instead. Decision-making, based on insights derived from open
data, is not restricted to applications that make daily life easier,
such as an application for parking. Open data can be used to increase
citizens' understanding about different subjects such as health, urban
planning and education or to answer different social, economic, and
political challenges society is facing.

EXAMPLES OF OPEN DATA THAT IMPROVE DECISION-MAKING 

Open data has the power to inform citizens and to improve their
decision-making capacity. The following three open data applications,
eHealth Ireland [https://data.ehealthireland.ie/], TheyWorkForYou
[https://www.theyworkforyou.com/], and Waze [https://www.waze.com/en],
exemplify this.

In 2017, eHealth Ireland [https://data.ehealthireland.ie/] - a
platform that brings together open data from the Irish Health Sector -
was launched. The platform uses, amongst others, open data from the
Department of Health
[https://data.ehealthireland.ie/group/dept-of-health] and from the
National Healthlink Project
[https://data.ehealthireland.ie/group/healthlink]. This includes data
on available health services, statistics on hospital cases, national
waiting lists, key trends on new digital initiatives, and prices for
medical treatments. eHealth uses this open data to facilitate
transparency in the healthcare sector and to provide citizens, care
providers, and researchers with the information they need to make
better decisions, spur for new innovations, and identify efficiency
opportunities. In conclusion, eHealth uses open data to provide
insights into the health sector, which, in turn, enables citizens to
make better-informed decisions, e.g. to decide which hospital to go to
for a specific medical treatment or the best quality-price ratio.

Another example of open data usage is the website TheyWorkForYou
[https://www.theyworkforyou.com/], that takes data from official
parliamentary sources in the United Kingdom. To enhance usability, the
website offers additional features that make the data easier to
understand. For example, users can discover who represents them, how
their representants voted and what they have said in debates. In
conclusion, TheyWorkForYou uses open data to provide insights into
government processes and behaviour of representants, which in turn
enables citizens to make better-informed decisions, e.g. who to vote
for during election times.

Besides healthcare and governments, open data can give insight into
logistics. Waze [https://www.waze.com/en], for example, is a free,
crowdsourced traffic and navigation application that was launched in
2008 and is available in 40 languages. The app uses open data such as
data from the National Data Warehouse for Traffic Information
[https://www.ndw.nu/en/] to provide users with real-time traffic and
road information. Users can enter their destination and then let the
app navigate them there. By doing that, users passively contribute
their traffic and other road data to the application. Users can also
take a more active role by sharing road reports on accidents or
hazards along the way. In conclusion, Waze uses open data to provide
insights into traffic and road conditions which, in turn, enables
citizens to make better-informed decisions e.g. which route to take or
which route to avoid.

THE POTENTIAL OF OPEN DATA TO ENGAGE CITIZENS IN POLICY MAKING AND
LINK CITIZENS AND GOVERNMENTS

The examples above show that open data has the power to improve
informed decision-making. Citizen empowered with insights from open
data can, in turn, provide governments with feedback. In the case of
Waze, for example, municipalities and governments also have access to
real-time information on road conditions and traffic that is provided
by the citizen. This information can be used to make data-driven
decisions on infrastructure an urban planning. Furthermore, since open
data has the power to inform citizens, and well-informed citizens are
a key to a functioning democracy, open data indirectly supports
democracy.

To conclude, open data does not only enable citizens to make
better-informed decisions but more importantly, empowers citizens to
contribute to policies that are better designed to their needs and to
a more engaging relationship with their governments.
