UK: GIS data on electoral and local authority boundaries made open
The United Kingdom's Prime Minister Gordon Brown on 17 November announced that the Ordnance Survey, Great Britain's national mapping agency, will open to the public its data relating to electoral and local authority boundaries, postcode areas and mapping information.
Data relating to electoral and local authority boundaries as well as postcode areas are to be released for free re-use, including commercial use. Mid-scale digital mapping information would also be released in the same way, the government announced.
"We are determined to be the first government in the world to open up public information in a way that is far more accessible to the general public", the Prime Minister said during a seminar at Downing Street. "I think we are on the verge of a revolution that can transform public services and the public sector."
Making available the Ordnance Survey data on council boundaries and postcodes is a requirement to a more open government, added Communities Secretary, John Denham at the seminar. "Any public service reforms must be open about what is going on so that those outside it can examine what is happening and to propose alternative ways of doing things if necessary."
Allowing people to reuse such data in different ways than originally was intended, the Communities write in an announcement, could generate as much as a billion pounds (about 1.1 billion euro) for the UK economy.
The opening up of the Ordnance Survey data is part of the 'Make Public Data Public' project. In this project already some 1,100 datasets have been made released.
The British newspaper the Guardian called the announcement a victory the newspaper's three-year 'Free Our Data campaign'.
The Guardian three years ago started persuading the government to "abandon copyright on essential national data, making it freely available to anyone, while keeping the crucial task of collecting that data in the hands of taxpayer-funded agencies".
The newspaper writes the move should save commercial users and local authorities a lot of money. As an example, it mentions the borough of Swindon. "(It) recently had to pay the Ordnance Survey 38,000 GBP (about 42,200 euro) a year to use its addresses and geographical data, even though it had collected much of the data."
Questions regarding the licence that will be used were not immediately answered.
More information:
Announcement by Prime Minister's Office
Communities.gov news item
Making Public Data Public website
Heise news item
e-Practice news item
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