Case Study (2013): The Value of Open Data in Greece

Access to information at all levels of public life is a crucial component of a true information society. This was the position the Greek government took when it came to reforming how they publish their data. It’s not just that access to information supports fundamental democratic values, such as accountability and citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More; the data held by public authorities has economic potential too. Information held by the government can be reused in all kinds of economic endeavors, from developing new customer services to fostering new scientific research – open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... promotes new knowledge and this in turn encourages innovation.

In line with these central principles, the Greek government set up Data.gov.gr. This is the central catalog of public data which provides access to public datasets from all Greek government bodies. The main purpose of data.gov.gr is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets, by cataloging, indexing, storing and searching the public sector’s data and information, as well as providing web services to citizens and other information users.

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