There has been a good effort to pull together existing open datasets that might be useful to #floodhack developers. However most of the EA’s flood-related datasets remain subject to restrictive licensing.]]>
By accessing Canada Revenue Agency records, a colleague of Eaves discovered that the CRA was being duped by fake charitable receipts -in a big way. When all was said and done, it was revealed that sketchy charities were bilking Canadians out of a billion dollars a year. That was .6% of the entire annual budget of the Federal Government, notes Eaves.]]>
The region outside Sochi where the Olympic ski and snowboard events will be held is virtually a pale green blank on Google maps, for example. The maps here come from the fun and fabulously time-sucking Map Compare tool on the website of Geofabrik, a German company developing commercial uses for OSM data. The Olympic park along the coast, and even downtown Sochi are also covered in more detail in OSM (although with some features that appear on one map but not the other, it’s not clear which is more accurate — at least not without being there). OpenStreetMap is a modern wonder. (Apple's map of the area is pretty much bereft of detail; Nokia HERE's is OK. Puzzling why Apple doesn't just take OSM's content outright.)]]>
Indeed several functions would be shared after the split – these include keeping a register of title, dealing with objections and responsibility for the consequences of complaints arising from alleged maladministration.
As usual with these exercises, the government suggests three models for the new delivery company: it could be 100% state-owned, jointly owned by the state and a private partner, and wholly government owned but with its day-to-day responsibilities outsourced. With the third model clearly the bonkers option - a double layer of responsibility for an outsourcing contract is a recipe for blame-shifting and disaster - and the first too much like the status quo, the public-private partnership is clearly the favoured option.
But what would a private partner bring to the necessarily monopoly business of land registration? Privatising Land Registry would almost certainly be bad for open data.]]>
The proposals aim to incentivise take up, encourage greater use of PAF, and enable it to better meet the current and future needs of users and solutions developers in today’s marketplace. The consultation runs until 20 September. The Free Our Data campaign says: push for it to be available for free and licensed under a UK government OpenData licence.]]>
However, all the talk recently has been around making the Postcode Address File (PAF) public, which, given that the Royal Mail is about to be privatised, I can understand. It's a suggestion and debate that has been going on for the best part of a decade, without any resolution.]]>
With Insight From: City of Chicago, City of New York, City of Edmonton, State of Maryland, State of Colorado, Code for America, The World Bank, City of Baltimore, State of Oregon, and more.]]>
While that sentence may not sound exciting, it could mean the beginning of the end of Galileo, Europe's potential competitor to the Global Positioning System (GPS), and the second such rival, behind Russia's GLONASS.
Galileo, which is officially known as the European Global Navigation Satellite System, only has four of 30 planned satellites in orbit. While Galileo would serve little strategic interest—as it would largely duplicate GPS—its supporters say that it’s important for Europe to have its own such system, largely for political pride reasons. We pointed out in 2006 that Galileo is a waste of time, effort and money.]]>
It is important for a number of reasons..
Firstly it liberates data that was previously difficult/expensive to obtain from the Department for Communities and Local Government both displaying it on a Google Map, but also making it available for download as a shape file for use by others - Kudos !
Secondly and rather parochial I accept, it is an example of data that was based on Ordnance Survey mapping published on the web.. not exactly case law but a good precedent supporting the view that a feature must exist as an object in the original OS data for it to be derived !
Thirdly and I would argue of most importance is that this data is really useful.. it is timely as it helps to inform the current debate around the planning system, and it is of real interest to citizens who can easily view areas protected by the planning system close to their homes !
Seems that there is healthy competition in data journalism! Parsons is geospatial technologist at Google in the UK... and former CTO at Ordnance Survey.]]>
[Michael] Anderson [PM Cameron's special envoy on the UN's post-2015 development goals] said: “I’m sure that a big part of [how much it is being used] is the kind of way that we are delivering the data. I recognise that we need to get better data out in a usable form.
“We still publish things in PDF files, which is awful. But we are going to improve, and we all have to move on this together.” Can't expect much use if you publish data in PDF files.]]>
The World Bank and Google have launched a project using crowd-sourcing to populate maps with the locations of public services in the developing world – a resource which could be used by many different groups in humanitarian and longer-term development work. Good move by the World Bank.]]>