There is no legal or organisational way for the administration to avoid dealing more intensively with data. The megatrend of implementing AI applications in a timely manner increases this pressure even further. Despite all the progress that has been made, good digital data management is still a foundation that is not laid equally everywhere in the administrative authorities. So the question remains: How can public authorities better realise the potential of their data and create a sustainable basis for data innovation? The often overlooked answer is open data (in German).

What is open data?

Open data describes the approach of publishing raw data that has been prepared in compliance with data protection laws in machine-readable form for further use, free of charge. Provided under an open licence, the data may be used for any purpose – from private to commercial. Possible open government data includes various types – ranging from statistical data describing population trends in recent years to spatial data depicting the outlines of urban buildings or informal tabular data providing addresses and contact information for social services.

The provision of open data initially sounds like just extra work for the administrative authorities. However, this is not the case, as this task is increasingly becoming a legal obligation for public administration. This is evidenced by various laws at European, federal and even state level that affect large volumes of administrative data (examples include the PSI Directive, the 1st and 2nd Open Data Acts or the Berlin E-Government Act and the Open Data Ordinance).

The “DVO-HVD” (EU Implementing Regulation on High Value Datasets) already contains a list of particularly valuable and important datasets. Federal, state and local authorities must now ensure that the data under their jurisdiction is made available free of charge and in machine-readable form.

Open data is usually made available via so-called open data portals. One example of this in Germany is Govdata.de, a federal data portal. These portals provide metadata for individual datasets as well as the raw data themselves. Raw data is provided either via either a link or a direct download. The metadata enables the data to be catalogued and filtered according to properties such as geographical aspects or thematic focuses. In addition, complete and high-quality metadata and appropriate documentation (for complex data sets) reduce the risk of misunderstandings or misinterpretations.

Of course, there are clearly defined legal limits to what can be published as open data. Personal data is protected. Only in exceptional cases, where a public interest can be proven and justified, can it be (partially) published. One example would be organisational charts or public contact lists. Data that contains business secrets or harbours potential security risks is also excluded from open data regulations.

Previous initiatives in Germany

There is no official list of all open data portals in Germany, but an analysis by the Neuland 21 e. V. initiative has identified around 219 data portals at state and local authority level (excluding geodata portals). A closer look at individual portals quickly reveals their varying degrees of maturity. The amount of data published varies from a few outdated datasets to hundreds or even thousands for some federal states and municipalities.

Institutions such as the Open Data Competence Centre (CCOD) for federal units or the Open Data Competence Centre for municipalities in Bavaria support authorities that are just starting out with open data. They demonstrate best practices or provide a basic infrastructure for operating a data portal. However, decisions on the strategic approach and the actual selection of data lie with the providing authorities.

Advantages for various sectors

Administrative data is usually collected and used for a specific purpose. Accordingly, it can be difficult for some authorities to imagine how their data might also find a use outside of their organisation. Or – with little contact with open data – the view prevails that administrative data is fundamentally uninteresting for those outside the administration. But far from it: the potential benefits of open government data for business, science and society are immense.

Examples of the use of open data:

• Companies in the energy sector that use open data on buildings and areas to identify favourable locations for solar installations in built-up regions.
• Scientists can use open data for research projects, just as researchers have used data from health authorities to track the spread of COVID-19 diseases during the pandemic.
• Civil society initiatives can use open data to develop applications and tools that facilitate access to services or information. This could be a practical search for advice centres and suitable social services, for example. But it could also be something simpler, such as a map showing the locations of all the Christmas markets.

These examples indicate the positive effects that open data can have in the sectors mentioned. This makes it all the more clear that data that has already been collected should not be set aside largely unused, but that this data should instead be made available for innovation.

From data silos to data insights

When it comes to beneficiaries from publishing open data, one group is usually overlooked. The first beneficiaries of open data are the authorities themselves. This is because data silos are a well-known problem in many authorities. Employees may find that they can only access data from other departments or authorities under certain circumstances (if at all).
Thanks to the cataloguing and publication of open data in a public data portal, employees can also access this data. This effectively creates a self-service offering for cross-departmental and cross-authority use.

Open data has further advantages. Because it only represents a part of the total data volume of an administrative authority, it is easier to manage and set up as a first foray into data projects. At the same time, it paves the way for a more purposeful and structured interaction with data and enables new perspectives on one’s own administrative actions. How data is obtained, how it is processed, who is involved and when, how data must be collected and enriched – all these questions can be answered with a manageable amount of effort thanks to the implementation of open data projects and can be incorporated as findings into the overall data strategy.

Simplified access also opens up opportunities to better understand your own data. Due to its machine-readable structure, open data can be integrated into digital applications or visualised. In this form, open data can promote evidence-based decision-making for authorities and optimise internal processes. A very good example of this is the Berlin Energy Checkpoint from the Open Data Information Centre Berlin. The map presents open data on the energy consumption of public buildings in order to visualise and narrow down potential refurbishment requirements more clearly and concisely.

Last but not least, such publications provide citizens with more transparency about the work of public authorities and administrative actions. They also strengthen social trust in democracy.

Foundations for data governance and data management

A structured implementation of open data also requires strategic considerations about processes and infrastructures for the management and ultimately the provision of open data. As already mentioned, how data flows through internal systems must be analysed in addition to generating an overview of existing data. The introduction of the necessary supporting digital processes in turn requires adjustments to workflows and the roles involved in the organisation. In our new whitepaper (in German), we explain the other steps your organisation must and can take to achieve this.

An open data sub-project can trigger positive changes in the authority: The knowledge gained during implementation helps the organisation improve its handling of data and develop guiding principles for future data activities. This process is already beginning when the data is assessed for its suitability for publication, such as whether the data fulfills relevant data protection and legal requirements. This process requires both a mechanism and a responsible role, which may need to first be set up. The process of implementing open data also necessarily generates valuable insights into existing IT systems and the modernisation required to enable the automatic and sustainable publication of data via interfaces. Ultimately, a sub-project in the area of open data can make valuable contributions to the further development of data governance and data management in public authorities – provided that these findings are incorporated into an overarching digital strategy.

Open data: rapid effects and healthy development

At the beginning of the open data movement, open data was more of an offer for civil society, and even here only for special initiatives that emphasised a responsibility for transparency on the part of public authorities. Nowadays, however, it is becoming increasingly clear that open data has many benefits for the administration and other sectors.

Many public authorities have never dealt with the governance of their data, which does not make it any easier to get started with open data. But the good thing about open data is that it is not an all-or-nothing endeavour. Authorities can develop, implement and expand their open data approaches step by step – and reap the benefits of easier-to-find and accessible data from the very first step.

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