The Economist on “The open-data revolution has not lived up to expectations. But it is only getting started…
The app that helped save Mr Rich’s leg is one of many that incorporate government data—in this case, supplied by four health agencies. Six years ago America became the first country to make all data collected by its government “open by default”, except for personal information and that related to national security. Almost 200,000 datasets from 170 outfits have been posted on the data.gov website. Nearly 70 other countries have also made their data available: mostly rich, well-governed ones, but also a few that are not, such as India (see chart). The Open Knowledge Foundation, a London-based group, reckons that over 1m datasets have been published on open-data portals using its CKAN software, developed in 2010.

The deluge of transport timetables, crime logs, pollution readings, property-tax records and the like has been a boon. It has allowed governments to serve citizens better, powered innovative startups and improved people’s lives. But it is not yet clear whether it will effect a transformation. For that to happen, the enthusiasm that drove so much information online has to mature into cool-headed pragmatism….The thorniest problem for open data now is privacy. Governments rushing to release individual-level data such as tax, medical or education records are “walking into a massive minefield”, warns Martin Tisne of the Omidyar Network, a philanthropic outfit. Such data are among the most valuable: they can boost, for example, precision medicine, which tailors each patient’s treatment. But a privacy scandal can cause a backlash against all open data. A public outcry recently forced Britain’s National Health Service to rethink plans for making anonymised patient-level data available for reuse.Open-data activists have joined forces with bureaucrats and entrepreneurs to sort out all these problems. Their solutions are starting to work, and growing amounts of data are being put to good use….(More)”