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Marc LeobetSpatial Data Office

Directorate of Research and InnovationDepartment of the Commissioner-General for Sustainable Development

Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy

Open Data and Public Services for Everybody,and some drawbacks

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Open data in France in a word

• Open data is strongly supported by the French Government.

• Two weeks ago, France joins the OpenGovPartnership;

• In 2013, France was actively involved in G8's open data charter;

• 2011 : data.gouv.fr portal launched, after some municipalities (Rennes, Paris...).

• in 1997, Government ’s agenda for the information society;

• since 1998, our ministry disseminates free environmental data on internet.

• Old roots :

– In 1791, the French Revolution requires, in its Declaration of Human Rights (art. 14) :

“Everybody has the right to request account to every public agent of his administration.”

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INSPIRE in a word

• INSPIRE is an European law, adopted in 2007

• It establishes a legal framework for a Spatial data infrastructure

• Through the web

• With regulations for metadata, web services and data models, coordination and data sharing– To bring interoperability through web services, semantic

and data models

• But no impact on the business model

• Just in France, thousands of data producers (public authorities)

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Main benefits

INSPIRE is designed to solve these problems between public authorities :

• "How to know where are the external data that I need?

• How to manage confidentiality (real or imaginary)?

• How to solve the problem of agreements that take too long time?

• How to know the quality of data (mine and others)? “

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The link open data/INSPIRE

• 80% of public data have a reference to a specific location.– Most of the time, ressources are common

• The French Government has decided to open all (state) public data, – so spatial datasets under State supervision will

become open and free.• In 2012, 98,8% of French spatial datasets published in

INSPIRE framework were open;– At national and local level, for most of producers,

spatial data <=> open data.

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The road to INSPIRE is sometimes harsh

• The rules in INSPIRE are often said too complex, and they are,

• Open data forces us to be more open to IT solutions from others sectors than GI

• And to be costly, and they are too!

• But how to reach interoperability in quality description, web services and data models without a tight framework ?

• How to reach a huge Return on invesment without to invest ?

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And the road to Open data is not only soft

1. To create value, users need interoperability;– Open data bets on standards;– After years of experience in data sharing, and for massive data

sharing, – INSPIRE regulations are the mark of the failure of voluntary

interoperability

2. « where are my customers » : how to defend funding ?• If your are a public data producer, • and if data is open and free, • in a shrinking budget context, how to explain to policy makers that you add value and need

money to keep an industrial tool efficient?

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Conclusion

• Open data is a great opportunity to create value and services;

• It is a sting to force the public services to be more efficient, more adapted to citizens needs;

• Open data is not a risk, it is the trend, and force to be more responsable;

• But we need to protect long term needs and to keep reference or authority data comparable through decades;

• Someone has to pay for. How? The answer will be crucial for GI sector.