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Central Government, Government CXO, Government Data Management

Thailand government Open Data portal starts to build momentum

By Laurence Millar | 1 June 2011

A second government in the region has launched an open data site. Following the launch of Data.One at FutureGov Hong Kong in March, the government of Thailand has launched an open data portal.

The Thailand site contains information from a number of government agencies including the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Agriculture; it also includes additional Gov2.0 features such as a facility to request additional datasets, and a blog/discussion forum.

During 2009, the Open Data movement started in US, Australia and New Zealand governments.

During 2010 the UK became the world leader through its combination of senior government leadership and community development, while the US, Australia and New Zealand continued to develop. In 2011, national and city governments across the EU and Asia are starting to embrace Open Data. There are many reasons why Open Government Data has been adopted around the world – here I list four of them:

Legal - Ensuring that government information is freely available is a foundation concept of democratic systems

Economic - The marginal cost of distribution of public sector information is close to zero, and therefore Open Data should be made available for free, because any charge will reduce use, and hence benefits, without reducing costs.

Moral - More good comes from sharing ideas and data than from protecting them.

Trust - The increased transparency and accessibility of government data will increase the level of trust that citizens have in government.

The Open Data ecosystem consists of data suppliers (governments at all levels - from the UN to local authorities), data consumers (media, community groups and businesses), and tools.

At an open data conference in Brussels last week the issues surrounding open data were debated. Topics included the economic impact of open data, the roles of government and non-government actors, charging for data access, technical and semantic interoperability, geospatial innovation, licensing and legislation. Governments need to develop policies in these areas, and can adapt and learn from the work done by others.

For example, the choice of Creative Commons for the release of government data in Thailand is an example of global best practice.

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