Which organisations should we be chasing? Let’s make a list..
One thing that we haven’t done yet – at least, not in full – is to draw up a list of organisations that are government-owned (ie the government is the only shareholder) and which collect and then sell back our data. Often they use the excuse of being “trading funds” – ie told by the Treasury to go out and earn their keep – to claim that they’re not government-funded. But it’s rather like a child still living with its parents. If the trading funds went massively into debt, would the government – of any political colour – shut down Ordnance Survey or the UK Hydrographic Office? We think not. So, they’re really taxpayer-owned. That’s our data!
So, who is there? Off the cuff we can think of the Ordnance Survey; UK Hydrographic Office; Highways Agency (does it have an equivalent in Scotland?); Post Office. Who else is there?
Once we do that, we can begin to frame precisely what access we do want, and create a campaign statement that can be framed in precise terms. That’s the sort of thing that ministers, MPs and senior civil servants find compelling.
Contributions welcome, as always.
- The following posts may be related...(the database guesses):
- Today in The Guardian: Berners-Lee talks; who should we be chasing? (23 March 2006; score: 35.05%)
- What's the cost of sales and marketing in the government organisations? (26 March 2006; score: 26.23%)
- Where we are today: chasing half a dozen ministers who won't take responsibility (12 October 2006; score: 25.35%)
- Ed Parsons, formerly of Ordnance Survey, now of Google (8 April 2007; score: 24.93%)
- Government widens click-use licence.. but wants more money from its users (31 March 2006; score: 20.9%)
March 16th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
To the list you may add:
British Geological Survey,
British Antarctic Survey
United Kingdom Meteorological Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Science and Engineering Research Council
Office of National Statistics
Medical Research Council
All local Government
Post Office
There are probably many others
March 17th, 2006 at 12:18 am
The Association of Train Operating Companies / Rail Settlement Plan.
It sounds obscure… but they own all the data that powers the journey-planners behind http://www.nationalrail.co.uk, thetrainline.com and so on. Anyone who’s ever delved into those sites knows that you can get better train fares and journey times by asking it the right combination of questions – for example, a London-Swindon ticket and a Swindon-Bath ticket may well be cheaper than a London-Bath ticket.
But, at present, the data owners charge a large annual licence fee to get the information. Freeing this data would allow enthusiasts to “build a better mousetrap” and create a site that eases use of public transport – surely a huge social benefit.
March 17th, 2006 at 8:30 am
The Defence Geographic Intelligence Agency (DGIA)
responsible for the mapping of large parts of the world where commonly no or only poor quality mapping exists.
Trafalgar House – resposnible for maintainance of maritime navigational aids
March 17th, 2006 at 9:11 am
English Nature and their Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish equivalents
Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland
English Heritage adn their provicial equivalents.
Forestry Commission
March 17th, 2006 at 10:35 am
A further organisation which charges both extraction fees (i.e. a charge for photocopies, microfilm or digital copies) and licence fees or royalties for commercial use is The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office). TNA is the repository of the nation’s historical records, including government files, and is used as a source by commercial publishers (such as myself) as well as by academics, geneaologists and others.
As a possible structure for such agencies, you could imagine a retrenchment of the trading fund principle into a sort of ‘citizens’ trust,’ ( since trusts are beloved of the present administation) with a limited discretion over imposing extraction charges. There would have to be a governmental – dare one say, a constitutional – commitment to maintaining the national assets controlled by these various monopolistic organisations.
March 17th, 2006 at 11:28 am
The Countryside Agency
National Park Authorities
March 17th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Here is the list of trading funds who licence crown copyright and are required to provide ‘cost recovery’ and a 5% return to the Treasury:
Central Office of Information
Companies House
Driving Standards Agency
Fire Service College
Forensic Science Service
HM Land Registry
Medicines and Healthcare
Met Office
NHS Estates
Ordnance Survey
Patent Office
Registers of Scotland
Royal Mint
UK Hydrographic Office
VOSA
I would suggest that you choose those trading funds which are most onerous in their licensing terms, and pricing structure. The verification report of Ordnance Survey by the Office of Public Sector Information makes very interesting reading:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ifts/ifts-members.htm
It’s useful to remember that these organisations are supposedly committed to ‘re-use’ of crown copyrighted information. Re-use. Now there’s an interesting thought.
March 17th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
HESA (new window) – the Higher Education Statistics Authority
March 17th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
European Centre for Medium Range Forecasting (ECMWF)
March 17th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Add to the list the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting
March 18th, 2006 at 12:58 am
Is the patent office different to the others?
I thought the people and businesses who registered trade marks and patents basically paid for the service and those who searched the database paid only relatively modest search fees and not for the information itself?
Any experts know more about this?
March 18th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Dear Les J:
You may wish to look at the website I’ve noted. The patent office is a trading fund and therefore subject to regulation under OPSI. You have probably never heard of the Patent Office in conncection with all of these issues surrounding data and uncompetitive practices because they trade fairly, transparently and openly, unlike some others, the most notable target, as has been pointed out, is the Ordnance Survey. That’s why I think this campaign should be very specifically targetted to the most obvious abusers.
March 18th, 2006 at 11:59 am
The website is: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1991/Uksi_19911796_en_1.htm
March 19th, 2006 at 10:41 am
I would suggest Dr Foster Intelligence and other orgs that charge the NHS for processing its data effectively (see Doing The Rounds in recent Private eyes). of course PCTs and Trusts need high quality data…so why is there not a dedicated unit within DH/NHS dedicated to generating it? £23k per Trust for such software seems excessive to me. Also, why is there not proper central co-ordination (eg of Public Health Observatories and Univ Depts) to enable this strategically? This applies also to those of us in the Vol Sector (the increasing importance and involvement of which the Govt carries on bleating about in all their worthy White Paper and policy rhetoric)….who need such data and have to pay an unaffordable amount to obtain/analyse it?
March 19th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Let us not foreget Auntie – the dear old British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The BBC must have one of largest archives of historical material in the World, that should be freely available, for research , if not commercial use.
March 19th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
I was wondering how long it would take for someone to mention the BBC. I’ll do a post on it because it seems worth explaining.
March 19th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
[...] A comment here brings up the question of “Let us not foreget Auntie – the dear old British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The BBC must have one of largest archives of historical material in the World, that should be freely available, for research , if not commercial use.” [...]
March 21st, 2006 at 3:11 pm
Errrm. Someone mentioned English Nature as one you should be chasing. Please note that English Nature has been making its Designated Wildlife Site Boundary GIS data available for FREE since 1998. But, as with campaigns like these, we rarely hear about the Good Guys, do we?
March 21st, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Steve,
Re English Nature.
As I think it is i that added English Nature to the list, it is good to hear that EN is making its information holdings freely available and is one of the good guys. However, is its benevolent enlightened policy enschrined in its charter or whatever governs its activities, because if it is not, then its policy of giving information freely could easily stop, if so directed from on high.
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:28 am
Well, blow me, what a negative response – “You know, it’s really sunny today but I am not going to enjoy it because I hear rain is forecast tomorrow…”. I’d have preferred you to say, let us trumpet this as a shining example in our quest for free GI data, but I doubt I shall see that message in the papers.
March 22nd, 2006 at 11:22 am
Steve,
I am sorry if you felt my reply was negative, it was not intended to be so, merely realistic. However. if the generosity of EN is not protected by regulation, then this source of information could very easily dry up, especially if it is decided in future that its informtion has commercial worth.
The objective is to gain access by right, to all the information (subject the usual caveats of privacy and national security), held by government organisations. Not just some of it, or if an organistion independantly deems the public can have free access to it.
March 22nd, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Sorry, Steve, but it’s only half free. It’s downloadable at no cost (what the free software guys call “free as in beer”), but because it’s derived from Ordnance Survey data, it’s still subject to OS regulations. I quote: “OS MasterMap – produced and supplied by Ordnance Survey from data at 1:1250, 1:2500 and 1:10000 surveying and mapping standards – is used as the primary source.”
I doubt you could put it on your own mapping site and do funky things with it without the OS getting very interested and asking for money. And surely that’s half the point of this campaign?
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:30 pm
The issue highlighted by Richard, suggests the following is necessary.
Government organisations be required to only use information that is already in the public domain in their work whereever possible, or if they require information that is not freely available, that if they do use it is conditional on it being made freely availbale (including information purchased from commercial sources). Or, at the very least information derived from it is freely available.
March 23rd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Charles,
Would you be so kind as to start threads to discuss other organisations.
I have in mind the United Kingdom Meterological Office, and the British Geological Survey.
Than you.
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:59 pm
You really need a better way of contributing to this site! Posting to old blog entries really does not inspire confidence.
I personally find the situation with charging for the food composition database particularly obnoxious, as it is so clearly health related.
Some more possibly relevant links are on:
http://open.egov.org.uk/Open_Data
Some more explanation of the legal position – and how it relates to moves within the eu – on this site would be helpful too.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:43 am
National Soil Resources Institute
Based at Cranfield University, NSRl charge huge fees for access to digital soil map data. Much of the data collection was publicly funded the result of collaboration between research institutes. The commercialisation of the data has eroded this collaboration and many errors remain uncorrected in the data
The data is especially useful for nature conservation planning – providing important information about the potential distribution of habitats. If is beyond the budget of most conservation charities, local councils and even government agencies.
March 25th, 2006 at 9:02 am
Having sourced gis data from many government agencies and departments, I can confirm that English Nature do set a shining example to others.
Spatial information is instantly downloadable from their website . in several formats.
Richard Fairhurst’s comment, “it’s still subject to OS regulations” is quite true. It underlines the importance of keeping a sharp focus of this campaign on key organisations like OS.
Well done to English Nature for making their data as ‘free’ as they can in the current climate.
September 28th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
As a UK citizen, this was embarrassing when I read it some time ago.
“In 2001, I was notified by the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) that the Crown claimed copyright ownership of all tidal products for Great Britain, Ireland and Scotland. My options were to stop distributing tidal data for those areas or purchase a license (with a recurring fee) for use of the official UKHO data. WXTide32 has never been a commercial endeavor so I declined their offer of buying a license. It appears that when the International Hydrographic Office (IHO) disbanded in 1999, tidal data ownership reverted to individual countries and the blanket approval IHO gave for non-commercial use of world-wide tidal data was rescinded. Since Great Britain has now claimed copyright ownership, other countries may follow suit. This means that only tidal data for countries that have explicitly released their data to public domain may be used free of risk of copyright infringement. Data for the U.S. is not a problem. That data was gathered using public (taxpayer) funds so no copyright is or can be attached to NOS or NOA tidal data. Likewise, tidal data gathered by the U.S. in other countries and published by them is free of copyright restrictions. But that still leaves lots of world and the database distributed with WXTide32 starting with version 2.7 shows that new greatly reduced area of coverage.”
(http://www.wxtide32.com/download.html)
I’m sure The Guardian referenced something similar in an article. The UK Hydrographic Office is claiming copyright on a function of the moon’s orbit.
September 30th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
We did look into this, and discovered that you can get free tide data from the UK government – you don’t have to go via the UKHO.
See http://www.freeourdata.org.uk/blog/?p=29 for the link. It might be worth revisiting in a year or two.
March 18th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
- The post office (postcodes!)
- Planning Portal
- Transport for London