Centre to float open-data policy soon
Release in the public domain will enable individuals to build commercial apps/services
New
Delhi, November 8:
The Centre will
soon notify a policy on ‘open data’ to put more data in the public domain,
allowing individuals to build apps or services for commercial purposes.
The government
generates a lot of data that many more people can actually use, said a senior
official at the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology. For
example, Census data is used by academics, companies, students and politicians.
“We permitted the
use of this data only for academic or government purposes. But, recently we
have taken a policy decision that we will allow people to create value-added
services on a commercial basis,” the official told BusinessLine.
Data are an
important resource. A lot of data with the government can be put in the public
domain, he said, adding that the government has started the portal data.gov.in
for such purposes and has chosen to put a lot of government data on this
platform.
Over
42,000 databases
“We have more than
42,000 databases on the platform presently. India is among the top 10 countries
in the world in terms of putting out its data on the open data platform. So,
people can conceive a large number of applications and services from this data.
There are so many start-ups who can use this data,” the official said.
The policy change
will allow anyone — private or government or academia — to offer value added
services. “We (government) will not take any charges … a user who makes and
offers the service may or may not charge for it,” he said.
The official said
the Ministry would take a call on what data to put online.
“We have appointed
Chief Data Officers in each ministry. Their job is to keep making databases and
then see what we can put out in the public domain. We have trained them because
it’s difficult to decide what information needs to be put out in public domain
and what should not.”
Privacy
issue
Asked about
privacy issues on sharing of such data, he said the government is only a
custodian and the data belongs to the public.
“Obviously, data
which are strategic, related to security, is different.
“We try to do one
workshop every three months. We don’t put anything which has privacy issues,”
he added.
Source | Business Line | 9 November 2016
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan
& Co
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