UK government makes data free for application developers

Development opportunity

The UK government has launched a new website which gives unprecedented and free access to government data in one place. The site, data.gov.uk, contains more than 2,500 data sets from across government. All of the data are stripped of any personal information and presented in a format that can be reused by any individual or business to applications in areas including house prices, local amenities, services, and access to local hospitals.

Stephen Timms, Minister for Digital Britain, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and Nigel Shadbolt of Southampton University worked together to launch the website.

In the run-up to the public launch, 2,400 registered developers were given access to a preview version of the site, enabling them offer feedback and start experimenting with the data.

data.gov.uk will be using a new, open licence, which allows government-owned data to be freely reused by anybody. Timms said freeing up public data will create major new opportunities for businesses. “By allowing industry to use data creatively [it] can develop new services and generate economic value from it.“

Berners-Lee believes making public data available for people to find new ways of using it increases accountability and transparency. “Government data should be a public resource. By releasing it, we can unlock new ideas for delivering public services, help communities and society work better, and let talented entrepreneurs and engineers create new businesses and services.”

Shadbolt said more data and functions will be added soon. “We are already working with departments, agencies and local authorities to release even more data all the time, and we want the release of public data to be business as usual across public bodies.”

The website is available at http://data.gov.uk