This talk was held in the March 2016 ITSL (http://www.itsl.uzh.ch) workshop on open geodata that brought together representatives from the Swiss National Mapping Agency Swisstopo, academic experts in geoinformation science and law, OGD practicioners from the City of Zurich, Gary Gale (UK, what3words) and myself. The purpose was to identify opportunities and threats that come with open geodata. My talk was specifically intended to approach these topics primarily from an industry perspective.

1. Open geodata: Opportunities and threats
Ralph Straumann, @rastrau
Ernst Basler + Partner, Zurich
also: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
ITSL Workshop March 9, 2016

2. EBP’s business fields in Switzerland
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3. EBP’s operational bases
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4. EBP and data
 We use open data, government-issued and other
 We help government (and private institutions) produce data,
derive data, assess data quality, disseminate data, etc.
 We are project-driven, and so is data we handle – free or not
 We don’t usually publish data
(there’s not really a stock of in-house data)
 We advocate open data policies, e.g. in strategy consulting
 We are an institutional member of Opendata.ch
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5. «Opportunities and threats»
For who? To whom?
 Private companies?
 Individuals?
 Government and administration?
 Budget?
 Society?
 All end-users?
 ...
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6. All too common mis-labelling
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http://geolion.zh.ch/opendata

7. All too common mis-labelling
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8. OGD = easier data gathering and lowered
entry barriers
 Ex: price for communal geodata:
0–20kCHF per commune
[Buogo & Moullet 2012]
 Data monopolies or oligopolies are
abolished  data not (with)held
by service providers anymore
(e.g. cadastral surveyor, SBB)
 Hence:
Lowered barriers to entering a
market. New data products or
applications become viable.
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9. License jungle
 Plethora of licenses in federal, cantonal and municipal offices
(and also other data providers, e.g. ODbL for OSM), PD for NaturalEarth)
 License, usage conditions, usage restrictions, requests, ...,
sometimes contradicting
 Licenses that are incompatible with certain uses e.g. OSM
 For some licenses: Virality
 E.g., what is a collective work, what a derived work?
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10. License jungle: opendata.swiss
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11. «Data debt» (cf. «technical debt»)
«In the long-term, one of the biggest challenges of Open
Data is not to have the raw data publicly available, but to
provide and consume up-to-date and high quality services
based on the original data. As a consumer, you have to keep in
mind that everything is a cache, as long as you are not the
owner of the data. You are in a dependency chain and you are
not in control of the whole chain.»
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http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/03/31/services-or-raw-data

12. Data debt and unintended consequences
 App with outdated data: Kataster der belasteten Standorte
(InteractiveThings)
 Refusal of data access: Mailboxes, OSM and Swiss Post
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13. Data debt
 App with outdated data: Kataster der belasteten Standorte
(InteractiveThings)
 Refusal of data access: Mailboxes, OSM and Swiss Post
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14. Data debt
 App with outdated data: Kataster der belasteten Standorte
(InteractiveThings)
 Refusal of data access: Mailboxes, OSM and Swiss Post
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15. Not law – but open data ethics?
Charter for Public Statistics in Switzerland (2014):
e.g., statistics are mandated, respondents give informed consent, data is provided
to the public, etc.
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/news/publikationen.html?publicationID=4876
3D Ethics Charter («3D OK»):
e.g., avoid bias, use reliable and current data, document source data, reference
changes in the data, etc.
http://3dok.info/WordPress3/les-principes-de-la-charte/?lang=en
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http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/06/05/open-data-rechte-und-pflichten

16. Not law – but open data ethics?
Charter for Public Statistics in Switzerland (2014):
e.g., statistics are mandated, respondents give informed consent, data is provided
to the public, etc.
http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/news/publikationen.html?publicationID=4876
3D Ethics Charter («3D OK»):
e.g., avoid bias, use reliable and current data, document source data, reference
changes in the data, etc.
http://3dok.info/WordPress3/les-principes-de-la-charte/?lang=en
... and OGD?
 Signatories of these kinds of charters are usually official-ish bodies
 How can we achieve commitment of relevant actors?
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http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/06/05/open-data-rechte-und-pflichten

17. Finances
How should OGD be financed?
 Ex. Swisstopo:
 Geodata dissemination revenue of 13 MCHF vs. production costs of 250-300
MCHF
 Swisstopo’s (FLAG Office; «Führung mit Leistungsauftrag und
Globalbudget») options: compensation, reduction of mandate or of revenue-
to-cost ratio
 Threat for taxpayers (preparatory effort for uncertain gains
through OGD)
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http://opendata.ch/files/2012/07/OGD_Studie_Schlussversion.pdf

18. Finances
VGI (e.g. OSM) to the rescue?
 various inherent biases in crowdsourced data
 OSM provides a service to the public, not ‘service public’ (in the
Swiss sense)
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http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/06/25/operational-use-of-crowdsourced-data-energic-workshop-presentation
http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/09/19/the-data-workers-manifesto

19. Finances
VGI (e.g. OSM) to the rescue?
 biases in crowdsourced data
 OSM provides a service to the public, not ‘service public’
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http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/06/25/operational-use-of-crowdsourced-data-energic-workshop-presentation
http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/09/19/the-data-workers-manifesto

20. Finances
VGI (e.g. OSM) to the rescue?
 various inherent biases in crowdsourced data
 OSM provides a service to the public, not ‘service public’ (in the
Swiss sense)
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http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/06/25/operational-use-of-crowdsourced-data-energic-workshop-presentation
http://geo.ebp.ch/2014/09/19/the-data-workers-manifesto

21. «Hacksploitation» and sustainable impact
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http://brianchang.info/2016/02/28/hackathon-be-gone.html

22. «Hacksploitation» and sustainable impact
«Entsorgung Zürich» app (citizen) vs. «Sauberes Zürich» app
(government)
«Trainshare» app (citizen) vs. «SBB-CONNECT» (gov-owned entity)
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http://opendata.ch/pressearchiv/offener-brief-zur-smartphone-app-sauberes-zuerich
http://trainshare.ch

23. Finally
 Confusion of terms: What are we talking about even?
 In our projects, OGD can make data gathering more efficient
 OGD affords newly viable applications and data products
 More competition and innovation over rent-seeking
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24. Finally, finally
 Lack of legal knowledge: License jungle, license-application conflicts
 Know-how transfer, legal consultation
 Best practices for data providers/license issuers
 Simple, universally adopted geodata licenses
 Data debt and liability
 Technical solutions
 Legal implications?
 Open data ethics?
 Financing OGD
 Political solutions
 Hackathons and intellectual property
 Prior clarification of intellectual property
 Open data ethics and community management
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25. Contact, follow-ups
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Ralph Straumann
Ernst Basler + Partner
www.ebp.ch
www.geo.ebp.ch
ralph.straumann@ebp.ch @rastrau