Sustainable Data for a Changing World:
The Open Data Charter’s Strategy for 2024–2026
by Natalia Carfi, Executive Director of The Open Data Charter
“As conversations around generative AI flood our off- and online conversation spaces, there is increasing focus on the importance of AI governance and AI ethics. At their core, however, these are questions of data ethics and governance. As such, the ODC is ideally placed to join and help mediate in the AI and data discourse, given our long history wrestling with such complex topics, and our ability to flow with and adapt to changing civilisational circumstances and engage with widely varied stakeholders.”— aimee whitcroft, The Open Data Charter’s Board Chair
It is with great pleasure that I wrote this blog post to introduce the Open Data Charter’s new strategy for the period: 2024- 2026. By the time this strategy is completed, the Open Data Charter would have turned 10 years — a huge milestone that we had in mind while working on this document.
I would first like to thank everyone involved in the creation of this new strategy, the ODC team, the ODC Board, and all of the people that revised the draft versions to share their input, comments and questions that made us rethink and reshape it to its final form.
This is ODC’s first 3-year strategy and we looked into the ever changing world of data, digital democracy, privacy and openness and thought about how we can continue to add value on these discussions with our work. Discussions are no longer just about data openness, or how all data — both private and public data is created, stored, shared, and used. This later stage we find ourselves in (the Third Wave of Open Data — as The Gov Lab once put it), which has evolved with purpose, is one where there is as much attention paid to the demand as much as the supply side, including the contexts in which it is produced and consumed, as well as its quality, quantity, the standards used and how ethically it is governed. Human rights have always intersected with data rights, but with the proliferation of new and fast-moving applications of open data, such as in artificial intelligence and machine learning, the old questions simply disguise themselves anew. Our strategy is centered on going back to the basics of data.
On the other hand, over the last few years, more than ever, open data conversations and projects have evolved into more thematic conversations, deepening the scope but also creating more specialized projects. This has also impacted our work and, as you´ll see in this document, the Open Data Charter is also moving towards more thematic work, double clicking on our existing core themes and international engagement in the international forums that lead those conversations.
But this movement towards thematic open data specializations has also come to the detriment of the centrality of open data in digital rights conversations. Open Data needs its time in the limelight again. “If we don’t get the data bit right, we are not getting the AI bit right” I have heard this line (or something similar) in conversations with colleagues and I couldn’t agree more. Open Data has a role to play in the demand for more democratic ways of technology and we hope to be able to keep our role as a global hub focused on collaborating with governments, other civil society organizations and international and multilateral institutions while keeping sight of the people and the communities that open data caters to and serves.
We hope to have deeper conversations with our stakeholders who operate within the local, regional, national and the global contexts to translate open data accessibility and usability, towards purpose, policy and practice.
We invite you to read this document and hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed the process of creating it. As always, thanks to all of our funders and collaborators for believing in our work and your sustained support.
