1. Executive Summary Open data is structured, machine-readable data that is freely shared, used and built on without restrictions or cost. Advocates and organizations such as the Global Open Data Initiative say that data owned by governments should be publicly accessible, since public money was used to fund the work. The open data movement is gaining momentum worldwide and open data has been adopted in over 50 Canadian municipalities.
In mid-2015, an Open Data Portal will be made available online where anyone can download the City of Greater Sudbury’s available open data for free. Staff will continue to proactively publish datasets on the portal after the launch and the public may also make suggestions about datasets that could be released as open data. This program will be implemented on an ongoing basis and within existing resources.
2. Open Data Overview Open data is provided in machine-readable format and with a licence that has few restrictions, so that the data can easily be re-used. Datasets released as open data are provided as collected, unless privacy, contractual, security, privilege or other limitations restrict the release of all or parts of the data in the dataset. An example of municipal government open data is a Microsoft Excel file listing bus stop locations.
Open Data in Other Canadian Municipalities In 2009, the City of Nanaimo was the first municipality to implement open data in Canada. Since then, over 50 Canadian municipalities and regions have released their own open data catalogues, 18 of which are in Ontario. Phone interviews have been conducted with 12 Canadian municipalities with open data programs to gather information, identify open data trends and get feedback on any lessons learned.
Over the past few years, developers have used the open data of municipalities to develop free web or mobile applications such as transit apps, defibrillator finders, nearby building permit notifications, bicycle parking finders, inspection history for food premises, beach water quality monitors, park locators, road construction maps, child care centre finders, election poll location maps and city facility locators.
Public Sector Open Data Working Group The staff lead of the City’s Open Data Project is a member of the Public Sector Open Data Working Group (PSOD). This group is lead by a Policy Analyst from the Government of Ontario and contains members from various Ontario municipalities with open data. PSOD meets monthly through webinars or teleconferences in order to share updates on municipal open data efforts. This helps ensure that all Ontario municipalities are aligned in their open data goals and aware of new trends. The group also has a private portal on Yammer to share tools and have further discussion on various open data topics.
The Benefits of Open Data Citizens, organizations and businesses want municipalities to have open data because they can benefit from the information and add value to it. Open data can:
improve transparency and accountability;
build trust between the City and the public;
promote citizen engagement and allow the public to provide more informed input to the City;
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improve effectiveness and efficiency of the City;
improve communication and data sharing with other municipalities;
provide equitable access;
enhance the value of data by allowing people to add value to it; and
contribute to innovation and economic growth.
Open data transforms governments from service providers to organizations that encourage and inspire growth. Tony Clement, president of the Treasury Board of Canada, believes that “open data is one of the most valuable natural resources of the 21st century.”
Privacy, Security and Legal Implications Dataset releases must follow the requirements of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.56 [MFIPPA], Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sched. A, and all other applicable legislation. Datasets containing personally identifiable information or subject to any privacy, security, legal or other restrictions will not be released as open data. The City may also have contractual or other obligations, all of which may limit the data which can be published on the Open Data Portal. When a dataset cannot be released as-is due to any restrictions, staff will evaluate whether a modified version of the dataset can be released that would comply with such requirements.
Open by Default “Open Data by Default” is the first principle of the G8 Open Data Charter, which was adopted by Canada in 2013. Open by default means that data approvals should start from a position of data openness and that data should be released unless privacy, security, legal or other restrictions exist. Instead of asking the question “why should we release this data?”, staff should instead ask “are there any reasons why we can’t release this data?”. Greater Sudbury is part of a select group of municipalities to have committed to adopting the ambitious “open by default” standard.
3. The City of Greater Sudbury’s Open Data Program Open Data Team An internal Open Data Team is being established with staff members from the Information Technology department, City Clerk’s Office, the CAO’s Office and other applicable departments. This team will review dataset suggestions, provide general open data support to departments and facilitate data release.
Open Data Policy An Open Data Policy has been developed and is attached as Schedule A to this report. The Policy was prepared with input from staff in the City Clerk’s Office, Legal Services and Open Data Coordinators from other Canadian municipalities. Staff are recommending that Council adopt the Open Data Policy.
Open Data Licence An Open Data Licence has been attached in Schedule B. Staff are recommending that Council adopt a municipal adaptation of the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario’s Open Government Licence, which was developed with extensive consultation from governments, open data experts and the
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general public. This licence is used by several municipalities and provinces. It is already familiar to frequent open data users and ensures that data can be more easily amalgamated from various sources.
After consultation with Legal Services, only one significant change was made to the standard licence, which is the inclusion of a statement to protect information under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.56 and the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004. Several other municipalities have also made a similar addition to the standard licence and the modification is highlighted in the preamble to the licencing agreement.
Open Data Publishing Process/Roles and Responsibilities of Staff A flow chart demonstrating the Open Data Publishing Process is provided in Schedule C. The staff member who currently maintains the dataset (the “Data Custodian”) will complete a form describing the dataset being considered for public release. The Manager of the department that owns the dataset will review the form and determine whether the dataset can be released as open data. The Roles and Responsibilities of City staff for the purposes of the Open Data Program are provided in Schedule D.
4. Recent Developments and Portal Launch Open Data Event The City of Greater Sudbury has already embarked on the process of making data open to the public. In September 2014, the City hosted a public event at Tom Davies Square to inform citizens of open data and to gather feedback on what they would like to see in the City’s Open Data Program. The event was attended by software developers, researchers, professors, students and City staff. The staff lead on the open data project has been invited to speak at a number of similar open data events.
Open Data Pilot On International Open Data Day (February 21st 2015), the City formally started an Open Data Pilot by launching a webpage at www.greatersudbury.ca/opendata, which has now had more than 500 pageviews. The page explains what open data is, has an Open Data Feedback Form and provides links to download Transit data in several formats. Transit data was selected for the Pilot based on recommendations by other municipalities and also because there was a demand for it, as evidenced by several Greater Sudbury Transit apps that have been developed by external developers. In addition, the bus stop data was easy for the general public to understand and provided a good example of open data, since it was available in three of the most popular open data formats. The Transit data is provided in CSV format (for Microsoft Excel), SHP format (for mapping/GIS applications) and API format (a tool created by the City’s IT staff that allows external developers to access real-time bus arrival times for use in web/mobile apps).
Staff have been in contact with several developers who are currently using the Transit API. The Open Data Pilot was a worthwhile learning opportunity for all involved and helped to raise awareness of open data in the community. Staff experienced that there is good value in releasing open data because reviewing data prior to release can make it not only more useful to open data users, but also to the corporation.
Open Data Portal Launch Once the Open Data Policy is approved by Council, the Open Data Team will begin educating staff about the City’s Open Data Program. The team will work with supervisors to identify potential datasets for public
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release and staff will begin preparing the approved datasets for release on the Open Data Portal. Staff will also review comments submitted by the public through the Open Data Feedback Form. Although the City will always endeavour to provide any datasets suggested by the public, it may not be possible to act immediately on specific dataset requests, given the resources that may be required to review the data, implement any modifications required and get the dataset into a publishable form.
In mid-2015, an Open Data Portal will be launched which will provide a single point of access where all of the City’s open data can be downloaded for free. It will be developed by staff from the City’s Information Technology department and will leverage existing tools. Approximately 15-20 datasets will be released as open data when the portal is launched, focusing on recreation information. Releasing this data in a machine-readable format will make it easier for the public to re-use the data. Some of the datasets which are being considered for the launch are: election results data/maps, ward boundaries, child care locations, parks and accessible playgrounds, boat launches, museums and trails. These datasets will serve as a first step towards the release of further data.
Post-Launch After the portal is launched, staff will continue to proactively release data and to review suggestions from the public. Data custodians will update any existing datasets on the portal, based on the frequency that the dataset is updated internally. While some of the data will be available in real-time, other data will not always be up-to-date because it is updated less often internally (monthly, quarterly, annually, etc).
Policy Review Open data is an evolving global trend, which indicates that reviews to the Open Data Policy could be required. The Open Data Policy and Open Data Licence v. 1.0 will be regularly reviewed by staff for currency and any recommended changes will be brought to Council.
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Schedule A – Open Data Policy for the City of Greater Sudbury
1. Introduction Citizens, organizations and businesses want municipalities to have open data because they can benefit from the information and add value to it. The City of Greater Sudbury is committed to transparency and accountability, and recognizes that society and the economy can benefit from open data.
Open Data is one of the four pillars of the City of Greater Sudbury’s Open Government Model, which was adopted by Council in March 2015. The City will release data for public use on a proactive basis and will also encourage a local government culture where data is open by default.
2. Purpose The purpose of this Policy is to create a framework for making City data public as open data, in support of Open Government.
3. Policy Statement The City of Greater Sudbury will:
3.1. embody a culture of “open by default” when considering datasets for release as open data;
3.2. maintain an Open Data Portal online with a listing of all of the open data available and links to download each dataset;
3.3. proactively make data routinely available to the public on the Open Data Portal while respecting the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.56, the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sched. A and other rights and legal considerations relating to the data;
3.4. include metadata for each dataset with information such as how the data was collected, when the data was last updated and the expected update frequency of that dataset;
3.5. prioritize requests for open data from citizens in accordance with City of Greater Sudbury policies and priorities, and based on the readiness and suitability of the datasets for public release;
3.6. engage in electronic dialogue with the community regarding data needs and requests;
3.7. maintain an Open Data Licence and other contextual information on the Open Data Portal; and
3.8. promote the availability of the Open Data Portal.
4. Application & Scope This policy applies to all City of Greater Sudbury departments and to data within the custody and control of the City.
The City of Greater Sudbury is required to comply with the law regarding the disclosure of private, confidential or proprietary data including the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.56 and the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c.3, Sched. A. The City may also have contractual or other obligations, all of which may limit the data which can be published on the Open Data Portal. The City will not publish information which would contravene any of these obligations, but may modify a dataset to remove private, confidential or proprietary data when the
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City considers publication of the dataset to be in the public interest. An Open Data Team comprised of City staff will provide guidance on the implementation of this Policy.
5. Guiding Principles The City of Greater Sudbury has established the following guiding principles based on Canada’s Open Data Principles, industry best practices and recommendations from the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for open government globally. These guiding principles will be considered by the City of Greater Sudbury when determining what data should be made available to the public and how it should be made available:
Complete: Datasets will be provided in their entirety, unless legal or other concerns restrict the release of certain information.
Primacy: Data will be provided as it was collected at the source, not in aggregate or modified forms.
Timely: Whenever feasible, datasets will be made available in time to preserve the value of the data.
Accessible: Datasets will be easy to obtain and with as few access barriers as possible.
Machine-readable: Datasets will be provided in machine-readable formats and in structures that allow automated processing in order to maximize potential access or re-use of the data.
Non-discriminatory: Datasets will be available to anyone and at any time.
Non-proprietary: Datasets will be available in formats over which no entity has exclusive control, to avoid unnecessary restrictions over who can use the data and how it can be used.
Open licence: An open licence will be provided with few limits on the use of the data.
Long term preservation: Datasets will be available at a stable location indefinitely and in a format which will be stable for as long as possible.
Free: Datasets will be provided free of charge.
Respectful: Datasets will respect community sensibilities and the privacy of individuals whose information is reflected in the City’s datasets.
6. Glossary of Terms “Data” is individual facts, statistics or information.
“Dataset” is a collection of data stored in a machine-readable format.
“Machine-readable” is a format which can be understood by a computer or other device and used for automated processing, such as Microsoft Excel files.
“Open Data” is data which is available for anyone to download and use at no cost.
“Open by Default” means that all government data should be publicly available, unless there are privacy, security or legal reasons not to release the data.
“Open Data Portal” is a single point of access available online where all of the open data can be accessed.
“Metadata” is information about the data, such as title or date of collection.
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Schedule B – City of Greater Sudbury Open Data Licence 1.0 This licence is based on version 1.0 of the Open Government Licence – Ontario. This licence has been adapted for municipal use and jurisdiction. The only significant changes from the Ontario licence are the replacement of references to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Ontario) with references to the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sched. A and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.56.
You are encouraged to use the information that is available under this licence as described below.
Using information under this licence 1. Use of any information indicates your acceptance of the terms below.
2. The Information Provider, the City of Greater Sudbury, grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the information provided for any purpose, including for commercial purposes, subject to the terms below.
You are free to: 3. Copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, distribute or otherwise use the information in any medium, mode or format for any lawful purpose.
You must, where you do any of the above: 4. Acknowledge the source of the information by including any attribution statement specified by the City of Greater Sudbury and, where possible, provide a link to this licence.
If the City does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using information from other Information Providers as well as the City and multiple attributions are not practical for your product or application, you must use the following attribution statement:
Contains information licensed under the Open Data Licence – City of Greater Sudbury.
5. The terms of this licence are important, and if you fail to comply with any of them, the rights granted to you under this licence, or any similar licence granted by the City of Greater Sudbury, will end automatically.
Exemptions 6. This licence:
a. Does not grant you any right to use Personal Information;
b. Does not grant you any right to use information or records that are not accessible under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M. 56, the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sched. A or any other act or by-law;
c. Does not grant you any right to use third party rights the City of Greater Sudbury is not authorized to license;
d. Does not grant you any right to use the names, crests, logos, or other official symbols of the City of Greater Sudbury; and
e. Does not grant you any right to use information subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade-marks and official marks.
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Non-endorsement 7. This licence does not grant you any right to use the information in a way that suggests any official status or that the City of Greater Sudbury endorses you or your use of the information.
No warranty 8. The information is licensed "as is", and the City of Greater Sudbury excludes all representations, warranties, obligations, and liabilities, whether express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by law.
9. The City of Greater Sudbury is not liable for any errors or omissions in the information, and will not under any circumstances be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other loss, injury or damage caused by its use or otherwise arising in connection with this licence or the information, even if specifically advised of the possibility of such loss, injury or damage.
Governing Law 10. This licence is governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, the applicable laws of Canada and City of Greater Sudbury by-laws.
11. Legal proceedings related to this licence may only be brought in the courts of Ontario.
Definitions 12. In this licence, the terms below have the following meanings:
a. "Information" means information resources or Records protected by copyright or other information, resources or Records that are offered for use under the terms of this licence;
b. "Personal Information" means “personal information” as defined in section 2 of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M. 56 and includes “personal health information” as defined in section 4 of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sched. A;
c. "Records" means "record" as defined in section 2 of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M. 56 and section 2 of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sched. A;
d. “Use” includes downloading; and
e. "You" means the natural or legal person, or body of persons corporate or incorporate, as applicable, acquiring rights under this licence, and “Your” is the possessive tense of you.
Versioning 13. This is version 1.0 of the City of Greater Sudbury Open Data Licence. The City of Greater Sudbury may make changes to the terms of this licence from time to time and issue a new version of the licence. Your use of the information will be governed by the terms of the licence in force as of the date you accessed the information.
Date: April 14th, 2015
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Schedule C – Open Data Publishing Process for the City of Greater Sudbury
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Schedule D – Roles and Responsibilities of Staff for the Open Data Program 1. The Open Data Team will review dataset suggestions from staff and from the public, provide general open data support to departments and facilitate data release.
2. The Open Data Team may contact Supervisors and their staff to identify potential datasets for release on the Open Data Portal or gather more information about datasets that have been suggested for release by other staff or the public.
3. Supervisors will proactively identify datasets to assess for release on the Open Data Portal and will work with the Open Data Team to identify other potential datasets within the City for release.
4. Data Custodians (staff members most knowledgeable about the data) will complete the Open Data Publishing Checklist form to the best of their knowledge, describing the dataset being considered for release.
5. Data Custodians will identify concerns relating to the publication of the dataset on the Open Data Publishing Checklist form.
6. Supervisors will approve the Open Data Publishing Checklist forms completed by the Data Custodians after verifying that all information contained on the form is accurate and complete.
7. Where appropriate, Supervisors and Data Custodians will consult with other departments or persons with an interest in the data about the publication of proposed datasets.
8. Supervisors may request a special review by applicable departments if there are specific or unusual concerns.
9. Supervisors will provide the Open Data Publishing Checklist and dataset to the City Clerk for review and consultation.
10. The City Clerk or their designate will review all Open Data Publishing Checklist forms before the datasets are published on the Open Data Portal, verifying that the proposed datasets comply with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.56 and the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c.3, Sched. A.
11. In the event that a dataset cannot be released as-is due to legal or other concerns, Supervisors will try to modify the dataset so that it can be released while complying with such requirements.
12. After the City Clerk’s review, Supervisors will make the determination whether or not the proposed dataset can be released as open data and provide their final approval to the Open Data Team so that it can be published on the Open Data Portal.
13. Data Custodians will send the dataset to the Open Data Team once approved by their Manager.
14. Data Custodians will update the dataset on the Open Data Portal based on the update schedule provided on the Open Data Publishing Checklist form.
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