Open Glasgow's Moral Maze

@edent — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 12:43:03 +0000

Glasgow City Council has released a treasure-trove of open data. Nearly one-hundred datasets ranging from Live Traffic Information - to historic climate data. A fantastic boon for researches and open government enthusiasts.

But there's a sting in the tail.

The majority of the datasets are under the Open Government Licence (OGL). That's basically Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0).

Eight of the datasets are licenced under the slightly different Glasgow Open Government Licence (GOGL). 2024 Update: The licence can no longer be found.

Again, it is a fairly standard CC-BY style licence. But with an "interesting" addendum. It warns users:

You must not use any of the Information for an illegal or immoral purpose

Is this condition compatible with Open Data?

Where are your laws based?

What's legal in my country may not be legal in yours. That's always the tricky thing with the Internet - a laptop in Beijing can download a dataset from Glasgow and use it on computers in Montana - three very different jurisdictions. Luckily for us, the GOGL states:

This licence is governed by the laws of Scotland unless otherwise specified by the Information Provider.

There is a full list of Scottish Legislation available for your reading pleasure. How confident are you that you aren't in breach of some archaic piece of Scots law? Would your dastardly plans leave you with a Not Proven verdict?

I'm struggling to think what illegal thing one could do with these data. Even if I used the Glasgow House Sales (1991-2013) data to commit a series of complex frauds - what's the punishment for failing to comply with this clause?

if you fail to comply with them the rights granted to you under this licence, or any similar licence granted by the Licensor, will end automatically.

The Creative Commons licence has been tested in court several times - but I couldn't find any examples where the works themselves had been used for anything illegal.

Whose morals?

Personally, I am a moral relativist. There are no gods which define a perfect way to behave. Our morals clearly change over time - whether it is around homosexuality, divorce, self-defence, privacy, or copyright. And those morals are in constant flux around the world.

What constitutes an "immoral purpose" when it comes to Open Data?

I suppose I could take the Rail Station Facilities data, find out which stations are unstaffed, and use it to create a map of which stations can be graffiti'd without staff noticing. Is that immoral enough?

I struggle to think of anything which is immoral rather than illegal. Perhaps I could use CCTV Locations Operated by Community Safety Glasgow to cheat on my wife without being caught on camera. Would that breach the licence?

Who gets to decide what usage is immoral?

Is this Open Data?

I don't know. The wording seems vague and unenforceable. Once you have released Open Data it is open. You can impose some conditions on how it is used, sure. But they need to be precise and easily understandable across the world.

What do you think?

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A love-letter to OpenDataCamp #odcamp

@edent — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 12:15:12 +0000

Last week I took an all-too-short visit to Aberdeen for Open Data Camp 6. A two-day unconference looking at Open Data from an international perspective. What works, what doesn't, how we can do better, and what exciting things are coming up.

I was mostly there for work - but managed to spend some time talking about our personal project OpenBenches. Here's a brief run down of what I loved, and what could have gone slightly better.

Love

Scotland! It is so nice to attend an event outside of London! Kudos to the team for not just falling back on yet-another Central London conference venue. Also meant I got to try the Scots delicacy known as Butteries.

Diversity of voices. People from all over the world came - although curiously few from Scottish government bodies. Lots of students and people new to the Open Data world. Great to hear so many new and different voices.

Quality of discussion was high - as was attendance over both days. Usually there's a substantial drop-off on the 2nd day. I suspect that's partly because lots of people were away from home.

Lots of people were interested in the OpenBenches story. We discussed how it was set up, organised, and run. Is there a future for it? Will we need funding?

Room for improvement

Some of the conversation was... forthright. That's a polite way of saying that some people were over-eager to voice their displeasure at other attendee's opinions.

It is understandable that data formats arouse such passions - but it's quite intimidating if you're new to the scene, and especially off-putting if you don't know the history behind the people, their relationship, and their arguments. My wife has already written about this.

Surprisingly few women turned up. Something the team are looking into.

And, as ever, too many good conversations happening at once.

Where next

Open Data Camp is marvellous because it is always somewhere interesting - and that's the best way to attract new people to the cause.

If you're interested in hosting it - visit https://www.odcamp.uk/odcamp-hosting-guidance/

scotland – Terence Eden’s Blog