Free Our Data, Charles Arthur presentation to Be2camp 2008, London, 10 October

1. Free Our Data:
a Technology Guardian campaign
Technology: what will be
important in 6-12 months, or is
happening now and is being
overlooked?
What is the correct role of
government today?
Should it try to lower taxes or
stimulate business?
Who owns the data that
government collects?

2. Free Our Data:
a Technology Guardian campaign
Aim: Make impersonal data collected by UK government
organisations available for the cost of reproduction (for
digital = 0)
How could that benefit businesses?

3. A story: climbing
Notice the water

4. A story: climbing
Climbing’s a nice idea - but you need to know tide times or
you’ll have a long and boring walk back
otherwise you won’t take the risk of going - which means
less revenue for the campsites, for local businesses, and so
on

5. Government: good and bad
Government is good at collecting data, especially where the
market would not (e.g map data of remote areas — rarely
visited but matter in emergencies or to small groups)
Government is inefficient at using its data. Tide tables, map
data, weather data and other information can be mixed
together by people who know how to use it to create new
sets of information - “mashups”.

6. The problem: licences
Crown Copyright is designed to be restrictive: it was
introduced with printing.
Licences can be expensive; confusing (restrict use in a
world where easy flow of data matters) and cause delay
(they make what should be fast, slow).
Without licensing and charging, there would be faster
movement.
We propose: no licences; no charges. Make up the
difference from the tax revenues generated by new
businesses and the expansion of existing ones.

7. What’s a trading fund?
Central funding
OS data
Government
Treasury
departments
Taxes OS data
Surplus
Local authorities
Ordnance
Survey OS data
Spends Licence Private sector
money payments companies
making maps
NB: generates no revenue

8. A better model
Central funding
OS data
Government
Treasury
departments
OS data
Local authorities
Ordnance
Survey Taxes OS data
Spends Private sector
money No purple lines! companies
making maps No red arrows!

9. Money’s being left on the table

10. Other countries have done it
South Africa
New Zealand
Australia
Denmark
Canada
United States
Spain

11. And it actually costs money
Last year, an economic study by private consultants found that
confusing government policies were harming a business worth
billions to the economy every year.
Government agencies often use their limited funds to collect,
manage and distribute the data. This drives some agencies to
adopt pricing policies that ‘over-recover’ the cost of producing
information,” says the report's author...
...David Hocking, chief executive of the Australian Spatial
Information Business Association.

12. Generating wealth from free can be done
The Global Positioning System (GPS)
cost to install: $8.5bn
cost to run: about $750m annually
Revenues generated from GPS units, services etc:
“global turnover for satellite navigation products in 2001
amounted to €15 billion and is expected to rise to €140
billion by 2015. In 2001 approximately 30% of the global
revenues were generated in Europe.”

13. Paid-for creates economic friction
A local authority may end up paying multiple times for data
it has generated — meaning taxpayers pay
1: planning application site map from OS (£25)
2: local council pays for map base (payment to OS)
3: personal taxes (half of OS revenue is from tax)
4: OS and Post Office creates Local Land and Property
Gazetteer (LLPG) from local authority data provided free
5: person checks application using postcode search: local
authority charged per click (from local taxes)

14. Trading Funds aren’t efficient

15. Whose data?
What is the correct role of government today?
Stimulate the information economy.
Should it try to lower taxes or stimulate business?
Stimulate business.
Who owns the data that government collects?
We all do - we pay for government.

16. Free Our Data!
http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/
charles.arthur@gmail.com