How Policy Could Advance Open Data in Government

Citizens could soon get access to more federal data if new legislation is passed, a General Services Administration official said. The Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary Government Data Act, or the OPEN Government Data Act, directs federal agencies to share their nonsensitive data sets in a machine-readable format, and it could prompt more to submit their information to Data.gov, the catalog of data sets maintained by GSA Program Manager Hyon Kim. The bill, recently introduced in both the House and the Senate, would codify Barack Obama's 2013 executive order mandating agencies make their data machine readable. It's "basically saying there has to be a Data.gov, and that agencies have to maintain it," Kim said.