Expand Open Data (FR0033)

Lead institution(s):
Minister of State for the Digital Sector, attached to the Prime Minister
Other stakeholders:
Ministry for the Ecological and Solidary Transition, Ministry for Europe
and Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of National Education, Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation
Commitment building on: commitment no. 11 Co-produce with civil society the data infrastructure essential to society and economy; commitment no. 12 Further expand the opening of legal resources & the collaboration with civil society on opening the law and commitment no. 15 Strengthen government policy on the opening and circulation of data of the NAP for 2015-2017
OGP principles with which the commitment is associated:
Access to information, accountability, innovation and technology for openness
Challenges
Opening public data furthers democratic transparency and economic and social innovation.
It improves public action and develops new forms of public regulation.
The Digital Republic Act, promulgated in 2016, has made major headway with the extension of the open data policy scope to new stakeholders (including local authorities and industrial and commercial public services), introduction of the open by default principle and setup of a public reference data service.
Ambitions
Increase the impact of ministry-led policies to open up public data and build data infrastructure.
Implementation of these measures now needs to be monitored and supported, and the cultural barriers that persist within government departments must also be removed. In order to advance the usefulness and impact for the economy and society of available APIs and data, and strengthen the link with the business ecosystems and communities of re-users, sector-specific "verticals" are also set to be developed around geodata, corporate data and transport data for example.
With respect to the cross-cutting actions to be carried out, the focus will be on:
Facilitating and encouraging the application of the open by default principle;
Fostering the re-use of open public data, not least that which are of strong economic and societal value (such as the public data service, sector-specific open data);
Assessing the impact of opening up and re-using public data.
The road map in detail

Enrich the "public data service" (SPD) with new databases, by leading SPD-oriented governance:
Work with the community on identifying 2 to 3 high-impact datasets per ministry
Define a timescale for opening up these datasets 2019
Develop "verticals" (sector-specific data, APIs, openlabs and dedicated community management, etc.) depending on the theme (e.g.: transport, energy and so on) in connection with the data.gouv.fr platform From semester 2 2018
Push on with the development of data.gouv.fr and build in new features:
Improve data quality and create links between data (enrich metadata)
Allow citizens or businesses to ask for data to be opened up Semester 2 2018

4. Enrich “public data as a service”: Towards a new list of reference data

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

Opening public data furthers democratic transparency and economic and social innovation. It improves public action and develops new forms of public regulation.

The Digital Republic Act, promulgated in 2016, has made major headway with the extension of the open data policy scope to new stakeholders (including local authorities and industrial and commercial public services), introduction of the open by default principle and setup of a public reference data service.

Increase the impact of ministry-led policies to open up public data and build data infrastructure.

Implementation of these measures now needs to be monitored and supported, and the cultural barriers that persist within government departments must also be removed. In order to advance the usefulness and impact for the economy and society of available APIs and data, and strengthen the link with the business ecosystems and communities of re-users, sector-specific "verticals" are also set to be developed around geodata, corporate data and transport data for example.

With respect to the cross-cutting actions to be carried out, the focus will be on:

• Facilitating and encouraging the application of the open by default principle;
• Fostering the re-use of open public data, not least that which are of strong economic and societal value (such as the public data service, sector-specific open data);
• Assessing the impact of opening up and re-using public data. [20]

Milestones

4.1 Enrich the "public data service" (SPD) with new databases, by leading SPD-oriented governance:

• Work with the community on identifying 2 to 3 high-impact datasets per ministry
• Define a timescale for opening up these datasets

4.2 Develop "verticals" (sector-specific data, APIs, openlabs and dedicated community management, etc.) depending on the theme (e.g.: transport, energy and so on) in connection with the data.gouv.fr platform

4.3 Push on with the development of data.gouv.fr and build in new features:

• Improve data quality and create links between data (enrich metadata)
• Allow citizens or businesses to ask for data to be opened up

Start Date: 2018

End Date: 2019

Context and Objectives

In April 2017, within the framework of the Digital Republic Bill, the government launched an initiative to promote open data and provide public data as a service. This effort required the state to open data by default and identify, with the public, which datasets ought to be released. This initiative was part of the 2015–2017 action plan, and nine datasets were opened on data.gouv.fr, the government’s open data platform. [21]

This commitment aimed to make ministries’ open data policies more efficient, evaluate the impact, and encourage data reuse. It also aimed to promote the principle of opening data by default and eliminate “cultural obstacles” within the administration. The government intended to fulfill these objectives through enrichment of the public data service with new datasets and development of thematic “verticals.” These verticals would follow the example of what has been done for geographical data or business data. The government also intended to fulfill the objectives through the improvement of data quality and metadata, and by making it possible for the public to request the opening of new datasets. The IRM researcher finds the activities to be relevant for realizing the commitment’s objectives. However, two elements have not been included in the milestones: impact evaluation and the elimination of cultural obstacles.

This commitment is clearly relevant to improving access to information, civic participation, and technology and innovation. It aimed to make new data available to the public and to facilitate access and reuse of existing data through technological innovation. It also entailed working with the community on identifying two to three high-impact datasets to be opened.

As written, the commitment is            verifiable. The first milestone indicates that the government seeks to work with “the community,” which could be understood as relevant civil society organizations and companies. However, the vagueness of the term will make it difficult to assess if the level of participation corresponded to the plan. In addition, the milestone commits to identifying two or three datasets per ministry to be released. However, it is not clear whether it would concern all ministries or only those listed as implementing agencies. Similarly, Milestone 4.2 does not provide any details on the number or type of verticals to be developed or on the process of selection. Lastly, the third milestone indicates that the quality of the data should be improved without specifying what the problem with the current data actually is.

This initiative could have a minor potential impact. If fully implemented, the commitment would lead to the release of at least 12 to 18 new datasets, considerably more than the nine datasets that are currently part of the public data service. The development of tools and verticals would facilitate the reuse of data through thematic structuring, which would improve access to information. However, the commitment concerns only the identification of datasets and scheduling of publication — not the actual opening of the datasets. The lack of specification prevents the IRM researcher from evaluating the milestone’s potential impact as more than minor. The third milestone, enabling citizens to ask for new datasets to be opened is overall positive. However, it would be useful to clarify what additional value that brings to the existing principle of opening data by default.

Next steps

The IRM researcher recommends that the commitment be carried forward in the next action plan. She also recommends considering the following actions:

• Include more ambitious and specific milestones, including the opening of new datasets rather than the mere identification of datasets and scheduling of publication.
• Include an evaluation of the impact of the "public data service.”
• Clarify what the “cultural barriers” are and identify and eliminate them within the administration.
• Prepare an information campaign and informative documentation to include the broader civil society in the use of the public data service. This will also ensure accountability.
• Prepare training material to educate the public about the potential of open data and possible uses (i.e., train-the-trainer material for schools and universities).

4. Enrich “public data as a service”: towards a new list of reference data

Completion: Limited

The DINIM and Etalab improved the quality and structure of open data making it easier to find and use, and developed several new thematic ‘verticals’ (sector specific data on businesses or building permits for instance) and APIs to facilitate its reuse. The government self-assessment indicates that efforts to enrich the “public data service” with new high-impact datasets is limited and that Etalab considers it necessary to improve the platform. [xxv] A report commissioned by the government and published in December 2020 flags that the dynamic of opening new data has slowed down since the adoption of 2016 Digital Republic Bill and that there is currently no exhaustive survey permitting a quantitative assessment of the level of public data opened. [xxvi] No evidence is available regarding the process through with government agencies involved civil society in identifying data to open.