Data is being ‘opened’, but will the masses ever care?

‘Open data’ is happening. We now have over 200 government data sites around the world. But how can advances in technology lead to advances in society? This is the question 30 or so people grappled with at the Policy Innovation event: Crowdsourcing Analysis for Policymakers.

There are some examples of open data successes in the UK. The crowd sourcing of possible cuts was useful in identifying the £1million – £10million issues that departments may have missed. A good example of this was the public pointing out that the £8million per year was being spent on sending out National Insurance cards to 16 year olds, even though no-one has ever needed this piece of plastic. The Red Tape Challenge has so far identified 6,000 regulations that need to be alerted or removed.

Open data my not be the democratic panacea it at first seems. There is a danger that crowdsourcing will only be accessible to those who have the ability to utilise it. It is estimated that in the UK 8.4million people have never been online – half of these have a disability and half are living in social housing. This ‘middle-class parent’ syndrome is a fact of life. Where a decision will lead to benefit or hurt then people will use all their abilities to try and influence the outcome. This is something the convener of any consultation needs to be aware of when analysing feedback.

The debate contained some underlying frustration that those outside the room were not embracing open dataness. But of course we were a self-selecting crowd of geeks who had decide to forego the comforts of our home to stand in a basement talking tech and policy, thus found it hard to understand why anyone would choose to watch Eastenders. The way to get people involved is to make involvement fun, make involvement easy and make the benefits obvious, but unfortunately the formation of legislation can’t always tick these boxes. To quote Otto von Bismarck “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Moaning about politicians may be a national pastime but that does not mean the masses want to ‘do’ politics.

There is a big difference in crowdsourcing data and crowdsourcing views. Allowing the public to collect/peer review information is different from trying to achieve consensus of opinion. Frustratingly for those who wish that life always worked in a linear way there are many important grey areas where data and opinions collide. This is especially true in politics and policy formation. Transparency can help people to judge where empirical evidence ends and ideological persuasions begin, but solving the big questions in life will never be left to neutral open data.

Policy Innovation are holding four more events in their ‘Transition Layer’ season.

Related posts:

1. Opening up data to give people what they want
2. Data-ing the gov
3. Saluting The Passage Of US Health Care Reform