How Open Data are Changing Our Lives
Conrad Quilty-Harper recent article for Telegraph.co.uk explores how data is changing how we live. In it he provides 10 real-world examples in the fields of Shopping, Relationships, Business deliveries, Maps, Education, Politics, Society, War and Advertising.
While the article is focused primarily on the benefits of data mining for companies, it also gives examples that show fundamental shifts in our society. Some snippets below in relation to government's use of data:
Politics
Spending data for the government is being released on a much greater scale, with the release of COINS spending data to be supplemented by itemised spending above £500 from local government. Several bodies have appeared that aim to provide a clear picture of how the Government spends money, including Where Does My Money Go?, OpenlyLocal and Armchair Auditor...
The London Datastore and Data.gov.uk are campaigning for and highlighting open data releases from the Government, and the Government itself is planning a raft of data releases. With more data becoming available about how our Government operates, it'll inevitably be pressured to change.
Linked data and the future
The majority of the information that we use in our daily lives is "dumb", or unconnected. The next step is "linked data", or data that talks to each other. In the UK, Tim Berners-Lee and the team behind Data.gov.uk are aiming to create a linked database of Government information. By providing all data the Government produces in a linked format, individuals will be able to pull in different sets of data to produce new and innovative ways of understanding how our Government and the world works.
