City of Buffalo Open Data Policy
Shared for feedback by Open Data Buffalo
City of Buffalo Open Data Policy
City of Buffalo Open Data Policy
WHEREAS , the City of Buffalo (the "City") is committed to fostering an open, efficient, accountable, and accessible government; and
WHEREAS , timely and consistent publication of public information and data is an essential component of such governance; and
WHEREAS , the adoption of an open data policy will improve the provision of citizen services, enhance coordination and efficiency among and between City departments, divisions, and partner organizations, and increase opportunities for civic engagement and economic development; and
WHEREAS , making public data available online for reuse and consumption creates value for residents, government leaders, businesses, researchers, and the media, and facilitates the proactive provision of information currently sought through Freedom of Information Law requests; and
WHEREAS , an open data program is crucial to providing opportunity for all and improving the City's relationship with vulnerable communities; and
WHEREAS , information technologies, including web-based and other Internet applications and services, are an essential means for Open Government, and good government generally; and
WHEREAS , the protection of privacy, confidentiality and security will be maintained as a paramount priority while also advancing the government's transparency and accountability through open data.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Byron W. Brown, Mayor of the City of Buffalo, New York, by virtue of the executive and administrative authority vested in me by the Charter of the City of Buffalo and the statutes and laws of the State of New York, do hereby direct and order as follows:
Definitions
"Data" means non-privileged and non-confidential statistical, factual, quantitative, or qualitative information that is regularly maintained or created by or on behalf of a City department.
"Open data" means data that is available online, in a freely accessible format, with no legal encumbrances on use or reuse. Open data is provided in machine-readable format via Application Programming Interfaces (API).
"Open format" means any widely accepted, nonproprietary, platform-independent, machine-readable method for formatting data, which permits automated processing of such data and facilitates search capabilities.
"Data portal" means the Internet site established and maintained by or on behalf of the City for the collection and dissemination of publishable City data
"Dataset" means a named collection of related records, with the collection containing data organized or formatted in a specific or prescribed way, often in tabular form.
"Protected information" means any dataset or portion thereof to which a City department, office, administrative unit, commission, board, advisory committee or other division/department of the City government including third-party agency contractors that create or acquire information, records, or data on behalf of a City division/department, may deny access pursuant to applicable privileges or confidentiality doctrines and/or any applicable federal laws and/or the the laws of the State of New York.
"Publishable City data" means data which is not protected or sensitive and which has been prepared for release on the open data web portal.
"Sensitive information" means any data that is subject to applicable exceptions or exemptions from disclosure pursuant to federal or state law or under such circumstances where, if such data were published on the Open Data Portal, its disclosure could raise privacy, confidentiality, privilege or security concerns or have the potential to jeopardize public health, safety or welfare to an extent that is greater than the potential public benefit of publishing that data.
Open Data Program
The City is subject to New York State Public Officers Law Article 6 Sections 84-90 more commonly cited as the Freedom of Information Law, which is largely incorporated in Chapter 361, Article IV (Public Access) of the Buffalo City Code, aka the Freedom of Information Ordinance. The Freedom of Information Law and the City ordinance provide that the people's right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society. The legislature declares that government is the public's business and that the public, individually and collectively and represented by a free press, should have access to the records of government in accordance with the provisions of the law.
The City will build on this existing principle by developing and implementing practices that allow it to:
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Proactively release all publishable City data, making it freely available and fully accessible to the broadest range of users in readily accessible formats without any licensing fees or restrictions on use or reuse;
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Publish high quality, updated data with documentation (metadata) to encourage maximal use;
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Maintain an open data portal that provides a central location for published City data;
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Minimize limitations on the disclosure of public information while appropriately safeguarding protected and sensitive information;
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Encourage innovative uses of the City's publishable non-privileged and non-confidential data by departments, the public, and other partners; and
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Provide open data that increases government efficiency, improves the quality of life of its citizens, and ensures opportunity for all residents.
The development and implementation of these practices will be overseen by the Open Data Governance Committee, which will report to the Mayor, or the Mayor's designee.
This policy will apply to any City department, office, administrative unit, commission, board, advisory committee or other division/department of the City government including the records of third-party agency contractors that create or acquire information, records, or data on behalf of a City division/department.
Governance
The Open Data Program will be overseen by the Open Data Governance Committee, comprised of representatives from the Mayor's Office, City departments, and will include input from the public.
The head of each City Department will designate, from within the department, an open data liaison, who will: be responsible for managing that department's participation in the Open Data Program; identify potential datasets for inclusion in the Open Data Portal; upload data to the Open Data Portal; contextualize datasets with descriptive metadata; explain or cite how the data was created; periodically update the data based on internal and external needs; serve on the Open Data Governance Committee; upon request, meet with the Open Data Governance Committee to discuss any matter pertaining to implementation of this Order; and assist in the preparation of the annual open data compliance report.
The Open Data Governance Committee will:
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Oversee the creation of a comprehensive inventory of datasets held by each City department which is published to the Open Data Portal and regularly updated;
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Develop and implement a process for guarding against the publishing of potentially sensitive, protected, privileged and/or confidential information;
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Develop and implement a process for prioritizing the release of datasets to the Open Data Portal which takes into account new and existing signals of interest from the public (such as the frequency of FOIL requests), the City's programmatic priorities, existing opportunities for data use in the public interest, and cost;
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Establish processes for publishing datasets to the Open Data Portal, including processes for ensuring that datasets are reviewed for use-appropriate formats, quality, timeliness, and exclusion of protected and sensitive information;
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Develop and oversee a routinely updated, publicly accessible timeline for new dataset publication;
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Ensure that access to restricted data is blocked, but make it possible to extract non-protected information from restricted sources and remove any data that represents policy concerns for publication, where feasible;
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Ensure that published datasets are available for bulk download;
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Provide for a future means of digitizing archived material that was in existence prior to the development of the Open Data Program;
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Actively encourage department and public participation by providing regular opportunities for feedback and collaboration;
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Ensure sufficient funding for implementation and support of an open data ecosystem by identifying funding sources for potential expenses, such as new staff, new software, training, and server maintenance;
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Set appropriately ambitious, clear, and firm timelines for implementation to provide motivation for action with benchmarks that can be used as metrics to quantify compliance with this policy;
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Create and explore potential partnerships that bolster efforts related to data release, such as: increasing the availability of open data, identifying citizen priorities for data release, and connecting government information to data held by nonprofits, academic institutions, think tanks, and neighboring governments;
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Work with the Chief Information Officer to develop contract provisions to promote open data policies in technology-related procurements. These provisions will promote the City's open data program, including, when appropriate, requirements to post data to the City's open data portal or to make data available through other means; and
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Create a data governance standards document that defines: the vision and daily operation of the open data program; the detailed roles and responsibilities of leadership and data liaisons within the program; a method for the identification and prioritization of datasets for publication and continuous updating; and a means for evaluating successes and failures of the open data program.
Annual Open Data Compliance Report
Within 365 days of the effective date of this Order, the Open Data Governance Committee shall submit an annual open data compliance report to the Mayor.
The report shall include an assessment of progress toward achievement of the goals of the City's Open Data program, a list of datasets currently available on the Open Data Portal, and a description and publication timeline for datasets envisioned to be published on the portal in the following year. Where possible, the report will include metrics on who is using government data, which data is being used, and how the data is being used. The report will also include suggestions for improving the City's open data management processes in order to ensure that the City continues to move toward the achievement of the policy's goals.
Following the submission of its initial report, the Governance Committee will submit an updated report annually.
The annual open data compliance report will be made available on the City's open data portal.
Andrew Nicklin
risks to the public
Andrew Nicklin
"policy concerns" doesn't reflect the framework of restricting or opening data as defined elsewhere in this document. "risks to the public" might do that a little better.
Andrew Nicklin
This can probably be combined with #1
Andrew Nicklin
is or will be
Andrew Nicklin
Maintaining an inventory of datasets that are already published is a basic function of an open data catalog, so this is more effort is more valuable if it seeks to identify and manage datasets which haven't been published yet.
Andrew Nicklin
Further supported by the annual reporting requirements defined towards the end of this policy.
Kirk McLean
Duly noted.
Peter Johnson
A listing of all datasets available (including those that haven't been made open) would be very valuable. And also help to answer those inevitable questions from developers or data user community as to "do you have data set x?". Once people see what data sets are possible to make open, you may get more targeted requests for that data set which could help to focus efforts on data liberation.
Michael Brown
I agree that having a list of all datasets would be useful. By including the titles of datasets that aren't open to the public as well as the reason why (privacy law, sensitive info, etc.), at least people know that such information does exist and why they don't have open access to it. It might also be useful for researchers since they might be able to sign a license agreement about using sensitive data that they have to make a special request for.
Andrew Nicklin
this is amazing. Very important.
Chris Slocum
Agreed. Also modifying the language to include quasi-city entities like BMHA and BURA would be excellent.
Kirk McLean
I will review this suggestion with the Law Department.
Kelly Dodd
I second the need to include BMHA and BURA. Also, not explicitly mentioned, would this apply to Buffalo Public Schools, board, and contractor?
Michael Brown
I agree that Buffalo Public Schools data should be included, with student privacy precautions of course
Andrew Nicklin
protected information
Andrew Nicklin
better ties this to the "protected information" definition in this section
Andrew Nicklin
If limiting the City's liability for how the data is used is considered a legal encumbrance then this phrase should be removed or modified. It's also conceivable you want Terms & Conditions on your open data which prohibit the use of data when committing a crime, etc.
Peter Johnson
Agree with this comment - the term in the policy makes it sound like there is going to be no specific license. Maybe a change to something along the lines of "using a standard open data license", if one hasn't been selected yet, or simply say 'a permissive license that allows for free use, including for commercial purposes'. I do like the sentiment of 'no legal encumbrances'!
Andrew Nicklin
Andrew Nicklin
Data isn't defined by whether or not it is privileged or confidential. The definitions "Publishable City data" and "Protected information" address this concern more effectively.
Chris Slocum
The City of Buffalo is to be commended for taking steps to move towards normalizing the sharing of data with the public. As a researcher in the non-profits, I see this as a tool to better serve my city. As a resident, I'm excited to see more transparency.
Comments: -The Open Data Governance Board should also include residents of the City of Buffalo with technical expertise in data management or interest in government transparency. These should be people who apply to it (and maybe the government members vote?) as opposed to being appointed. There are some tips on engaging the civic tech community here: https://www.civichacking.guide though there are likely interested parties outside that community. However it’s structured, it should be as a dialog with city residents.
-I agree with Aaron that the source code of the open data tools should be available.
-I’d recommend a citizen-heavy deliberative democracy process (think participatory budgeting without the budget) to figure out some of the specifics of what to release and how often. I suspect that most residents of the city, including myself, don’t know what is available. Della Rucker, an economic development consultant based in Akron, suggests that when such processes are engaged, inform all parties of limitations and that can often lead to better outcomes.
-Would there be a listserv announcing new releases, the way that HUD or the Census does?
-My employer manages a client-level database that has input from over 100 users. We've found that if you do not enforce strict requirements of timeliness, data quality suffers as it becomes perpetually delayed. Since there were no explicit timelines mentioned here (our requirement is that data needs to be entered within 72 hours of the event), I worry this very valuable effort could suffer from similar backburner issues.
Thank you for sharing this with the public for feedback! I thought this was a really useful format!
Kirk McLean
Chris -- A genuine thank you for all your comments and notes! I agree that Mark's guide is a great resource. I've already read through it and I know I will reference it often as the City works to include input from the public. I think a listserv announcing new dataset releases is a great idea. We're very thankful to have your input. I have no doubt it will make the Mayor's policy even stronger. I'm glad you liked the format. We were excited to have such an innovative tool at our disposal for engaging the community.
Chris Slocum
What exactly are examples of "applicable privileges"?
Andrew Nicklin
I'm not an expert, but usually these are exemptions that are already provided for by New York State's Freedom of Information Law. https://www.dos.ny.gov/coog/foil2.html
Stephanie Perry
What can we do to get sensitive, protected or privileged data in the aggregate or anonymized when appropriate?
Chris Slocum
A central location is a good idea, IMHO
Andrew Nicklin
Agree, but I'm not sure the City needs to "maintain" it. For example, if the City opts to use the NY State portal for hosting, or perhaps participate in a regional data-sharing initiative, then strictly speaking they wouldn't be adhering to this language.
Kirk McLean
Instead of "maintain", what wording do you think would provide the City the flexibility you mention?
Andrew Nicklin
Perhaps "make available to the public an open data ..." or "provide a central location for published City data"? I'm not sure those are hugely different from "maintain". Alternately, this item could get merged into #1 by saying "Proactively release all publishable City data through a central location, making it ..."
Peter Johnson
How about 'support an open data portal'? This would leave the ownership question open. Agree with previous comments - maintaining your own catalog does remove the option to federate with other levels of government
Chris Slocum
There should be a publicly available list of what is blocked and why. Having this list facilitates transparency and understanding of how the government operates.
Chris Slocum
Since this is a service to the residents of Buffalo, there should be resident participation in the governance committee as there may be dis-concordance between what residents and city employees consider "appropriately ambitious".
Chris Slocum
That would be super helpful :)
Andrew Nicklin
agree, but can be quite costly. see #10 below.
Chris Slocum
To be honest, I'm not entirely certain what this is trying to say.
Kirk McLean
I think this should read "privacy concerns." Thanks for catching it. We may adopt the language Andrew suggested below.
Chris Slocum
Would this liaison be the contact person if a dataset user (ie a student doing a project or a researcher) had questions about the set?
Kirk McLean
We haven't set any protocols surrounding that topic yet, but we'll talk to our partners at What Works Cities and see what works for other cities.
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