Open principles for data rights
Building a new consensus
ODC 2020–2021 strategy
It is increasingly well understood that data and technology reflect how power is distributed. Our laws and policies must account for this — making sure society can benefit from these tools, that power is kept in check, and human rights are protected.
The Open Data Charter exists to articulate the benefits of open data and work with our partners to push for policies and practices which realise them.
This kind of transparency helps make governments more efficient and accountable, enable global collaboration, and tackle critical problems like public health, climate change, and corruption.
ODC has made significant strides in its five years, with more than 100 governments and organisations committing to opening up data based on a set of global principles since 2015. It has influenced global data policies, helping shift focus to the purpose-driven publication of open data. This has begun to deliver concrete benefits in countries around the world.
But the open data community has not sufficiently balanced its arguments for publishing information against other fast-evolving data rights and collective needs.
Data abuse scandals — often linked to political or consumer advertising — have triggered debate about how to protect personal data. To the general public, these concerns challenge the idea that greater access to data is a good thing and feel more tangible and urgent than any benefits it might bring. Increasingly sophisticated technology means a lot more data can now be analysed for good or ill, raising further questions about how it should be regulated.
Thus in recent years, open data adopters have met legitimate pushback from a highly effective privacy lobby. A focus on being “open by default” has not always acknowledged the need for exemptions where other rights are threatened, such as privacy, liability, or security concerns. At the same time, personal privacy considerations have also been used by unscrupulous governments to avoid being held to account. On both sides of the argument, we need to account for benefits and risks.
Data rights are presently too often placed in opposition when they should be seen as part of the same argument. In its efforts to build and shape global norms, ODC will prioritise closing this gap with partners in 2020. We aim to develop and lobby jointly for an equitable data rights framework that has openness at its core, but also protects people’s privacy and mitigates other risks. This common set of principles can then be applied by a range of organisations to specific advocacy contexts.
For ODC, this means two things. With these new overarching norms in hand, it will continue to show how open data can work in practice to bring concrete social and political benefits. It will focus on issues which already have salience and political momentum, such as tackling corruption, closing gender pay gaps, and mitigating climate change.
At the same time, we will work with governments to navigate the trade-offs between different data rights around these issues, recognising that there is no template solution in this fast-changing policy area.
This mix of activities will help demonstrate that when officials open up public data and protect individual and collective rights, it can help them govern better. This will, in turn, build and strengthen political will for further reforms.
For more on the concrete steps we will take to achieve all this, please see the strategy itself:
