ISE18/15-16

• In his 2014-2015 Budget Speech, the Financial Secretary highlighted the need to develop Hong Kong into a smart city. One of the initiatives was to make available all government information in digital formats for public consumption from 2015 onwards.^{1Legend symbol denoting Open data is conducive to the build-up of a smart city. For a detailed discussion of smart city, please refer to the Essentials entitled "What is a 'Smart City'?" published by the Research Office in March 2015.} In support of this new initiative, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer ("OGCIO")^{2Legend symbol denoting OGCIO was set up on 1 July 2004 to provide leadership for the development of information and communications technology within and outside the Government.} has revamped its open data portal, which was launched in 2011 to facilitate a wider use of Public Sector Information ("PSI") for value-added reuse.^{3Legend symbol denoting In 2011, OGCIO launched an 18-month pilot scheme to make available geo-referenced public facilities data and real-time traffic data for free download and value-added reuse by the public. The relevant data was provided via a portal, entitled Data.One.} The revamped portal, Data.Gov.HK, came into place in March 2015, and it now covers more than 6 000 datasets in 18 categories.^{4Legend symbol denoting The revamped portal also provides enhanced search capability as well as new functions, such as charting or mapping datasets directly on the portal.}
• Amid the increased number and variety of government datasets for public consumption, Hong Kong has improved its ranking in the Global Open Data Index^{5Legend symbol denoting The Global Open Data Index is an annual effort undertaken by the Open Knowledge Foundation to measure the state of open government data around the world. The ranking is based on the availability and accessibility of data in 13 key categories, including government statistics, government budget, legislation, government spending, election results and procurement tenders.} from 54th in 2014 to 37th in 2015. Yet, with only 42% of its government datasets available for the public to use, Hong Kong still lagged behind other Asian economies. For example, Taiwan topped the Global Open Data Index in 2015,^{6Legend symbol denoting Taiwan improved its respective rankings of 36th in 2013 and 11th in 2014 in the Global Open Data Index.} followed by India (17th), South Korea (23rd), Singapore (also 23rd) and Japan (31st).
• This issue of Essentials introduces the concept of open data, followed by a brief discussion of the value of open data and overseas experience in opening up PSI.

What is open data?

• There are currently many definitions of open data. For example, data.gov.uk^{7Legend symbol denoting In the United Kingdom, data.gov.uk is a government project aiming to make available non-personal government data as open data.} defines open data as the "data that is published in an open format, is machine readable and is published under a licence that allows for free reuse". Alternatively, Open Definition^{8Legend symbol denoting The Open Definition was created by the Open Knowledge Foundation in 2005. The foundation is a global non-profit network that aims to promote open data and content.} defines open data as data that "can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike".^{9Legend symbol denoting Generally speaking, attribution means that the data user must credit the data publisher for the original creation, and sharealike means that the data user must license their new creations under identical terms as the original data.} For the World Bank, data is open if it is (a) available in a machine readable standard format; and (b) explicitly licensed in a way that permits commercial and non-commercial use and reuse without restrictions.
• While no precise definition of open data is in place, a high-quality open dataset generally possesses the following five characteristics:
  
  

  (a)	availability - a wide range of users is permitted to access the data;
  (b)	cost - data should be accessed free or at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost;
  (c)	machine readability - the data must be available in machine readable formats, such as CSV, JSON, XML, that can be processed and analysed by computer;
  (d)	rights - limitations on the use, transformation, and distribution of data are minimal; and
  (e)	interoperability - the data must permit intermixing with other data to allow for the development of more and better products and services.

• Open data varies in scope and source. They can be local, regional, and global in scope. In addition, open data can be obtained from commercial and government sources. Many organizations collect a broad range of data in order to perform their tasks. Government is particularly significant in this respect because of the large amounts of data on a range of topics it collects in its day-to-day activities.
• Open data is sometimes related to big data, but they represent two distinct concepts. The fast development of information technology and increased usage of Internet in recent years have generated unprecedented volume of digital data. The vast amount of raw data so generated across society, and collected by commercial and government organizations, is known as "big data". Big data is often defined along three dimensions known as 3Vs: (a) volume (large amounts of data), (b) variety (high variety in data sources and formats), and (c) velocity (occurrence and analysis of data in real-time or near real time).
• Against the above, "big data" refers to a dataset that is voluminous, diverse and timely, while open data describes how accessible a dataset is in terms of the five characteristics mentioned above. Furthermore, big data features processing very large datasets to identify patterns and connections in the data. For open data, it involves publishing machine readable data that people, companies and organizations can use, reuse or distribute it with no or minimal restrictions.

Value of open data

• The use of open data is a relatively recent phenomenon with the earliest open data initiatives launched in the United States ("US") and the United Kingdom ("UK") around late 2000s.^{10Legend symbol denoting In the US, President Barack Obama issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government on his first day in office in January 2009. In the memorandum, Obama committed that his administration would work together to ensure the public trust and to establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. This was followed in May 2009 by the launch of the US open data portal, Data.gov, with 47 datasets. The UK was also active around this time and Prime Minister David Cameron launched the UK open data portal, data.gov.uk, in 2010.} In recent years, open data has been growing in relevance and prevalence, as more than 70 countries have now made their data available.^{11Legend symbol denoting See Economist (2015).} This development is attributable to, among other things, technological advances such as cheaper memory storages and the exponential growth of digital information. Heightened focus on data-driven analysis and decision-making also plays a part in its rapid development.
• It is also believed that the widespread use of open data will deliver a range of benefits to governments, citizens and organizations alike. For example, by releasing PSI as open data, governments can ensure that their actions, including spending practices, are transparent. This can, in turn, help reduce waste and facilitate government accountability. Releasing more open data also enables the public to better understand about how the government operates, thereby improving public trust and boosting community engagement. 
• In addition, releasing PSI as open data also stimulates innovations which help improve efficiency of government services. For example, in the UK, a joint venture of technologists and doctors has made use of open data to unveil the overspending on prescription drugs by the publicly funded National Health Service ("NHS").^{12Legend symbol denoting See Prescribing Analytics (2016).} In 2012, an analysis was conducted to examine written prescriptions of family doctors in England and their regional patterns in the prescriptions of statins (drugs used to lower cholesterol levels). It was found that there was a big local variation in prescriptions of the more expensive branded drugs and cheaper (but equally efficient) generic drugs. The joint venture estimated that, had every doctor prescribed an equally effective generic drug, the drugs bill incurred by NHS might have been reduced by more than £200 million (HK$2.5 billion).
• Open data may also generate economic impacts that benefit both consumers and business organizations. According to a study conducted by McKinsey Global Institute in 2013, the use of open data has the potential for generating more than US$3 trillion (HK$23.3 trillion) in economic value globally each year from seven sectors, namely healthcare, transportation, consumer products, consumer finance, education, oil and gas, and electricity. The McKinsey report also identified the ways in which the use of open data would bring value to both the public and private spheres. These include:
  
  

  (a)	healthcare - enabling services providers to determine the most timely and appropriate treatment for patients and ensure cost-effectiveness of care;
  (b)	transportation - allowing time saving for individuals from using open data to make better decisions about which mode of travel to use and when;
  (c)	consumer products - helping (i) manufacturers and retailers to better target customers for marketing and sales by using open data from social media or neighbourhood demographics; and (ii) consumers to make more informed purchasing as open data enables price transparency and access to other product information (e.g. the provenance of packaged food);
  (d)	consumer finance - giving consumers up-to-date information on the costs of a host of financial products from the updates on fees for mortgage, retirement plans, credit cards and other consumer products published by third-party data providers;
  (e)	education - improving instruction by using data on student performance and learning styles to design and personalize lessons suited to individual skills and learning styles;
  (f)	oil and gas - allowing companies to make use of publicly available geological data as well as projections of oil and gas to improve their investment decisions about where to explore new reserves and build downstream facilities ; and
  (g)	electricity - facilitating residential and business users to make better decision about which appliances and equipment to buy or what electric service to use by using open data that makes it possible to compare products and services.

Overseas experience

• The potential benefits of open data have enticed many other governments to follow the US and the UK in opening up their PSI. Among them, Taiwan and the UK were the two top performing in the state of open data,^{13Legend symbol denoting In 2015, the UK lost its first place it held on during 2013-2014 to Taiwan.} according to the Global Data Index in 2015 which ranked 122 places on 13 data-sharing metrics.
• Taiwan set up a government data portal in 2013 with interactive features allowing users to suggest data for publication and discuss open data use. More importantly, Taiwan has put in place a formalized consultation mechanism characterized by the establishment of dedicated advisory committees on open data in all government ministries. As a channel of communications between the government and the private sector, the advisory committees comprise members from the government as well as representatives from business and industry associations, social groups and academic sector.
• Meanwhile, the UK has put in place a set of clear standards - the Public Data Principles - to be adopted across the public sector for releasing public datasets. The Principles focus not only on making sure that data is easy to find and easy to reuse, but also to ensure that it is published in a timely fashion. In addition, they require data to be made available in easy-to-use formats and released under the same Open Government Licence^{14Legend symbol denoting The Government Open Licence is a simple set of terms and conditions under which information providers in the public sector license the use and reuse of their information with minimal restrictions. There is no need to register or apply for an Open Government Licence. Users simply need to ensure that their use of information complies with the Open Government Licence terms.} to encourage reuse.
• In the UK, datasets on data.gov.uk are also automatically given an "Openness Rating" to give a simple indication of how well the dataset has been made open. The criteria are based on the "Five Stars of Openness" which denotes different levels of open data from least (one star) to most useful (five stars).^{15Legend symbol denoting The "Five Stars of Openness" was developed by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web. It ranges from one star (simply making data available on the web in any form with an open licence) to five stars (linking the dataset to other existing datasets on the web).} According to data.gov.uk, the "Five Stars of Openness" aims to serve as a useful driver to improve the quality of data, with the objective of increasing the number of open government datasets attaining the 5-star status.

Concluding remarks

• The value of open data comes from its use. As such, open data must be user-centric to align with the interests and requirement of data users. An efficient way to decide what data to release is to ask data users for suggestion. Taiwan has set out an open data policy with a strong focus on community engagement. It is characterized by the establishment of dedicated interactive features on the government portal and a formalized consultation mechanism on open data to facilitate active dialogue between government data providers and data users.
• Apart from active community engagement, it is also important to ensure that open data is of high quality to facilitate the maximum use of the data. In the UK, the government does not stop at establishing data.gov.uk as a single point of access for PSI and then populating it with datasets.^{16Legend symbol denoting According to Professor Nigel Shadbolt, "[f]or data.gov.uk, it wasn't enough just to establish a single point of access and then populate it with datasets." Shadbolt is a member of the UK Government's Public Sector Transparency Board, which was set up by the Prime Minister to drive forward the government's transparency agenda. See Shadbolt (2011).} It has established the UK's Public Data Principles to determine the "what" and "how" for publishing public sector data on the web, as well as setting out a simple "Five Stars of Openness" for judging how open and reusable data is.

Prepared by Samantha LAU
Research Office
Information Services Division
Legislative Council Secretariat
20 May 2016