Key information
This is the current version of the statement as at 5/06/2019.
Previous versions can be accessed here.
Publishing anonymised government data will stimulate innovation and unlock the economic value of public data.
References to data or open data apply to government data categorised as non-sensitive, which means it does not include personally identifiable information, commercial details, matters of security or the administration of justice.
In line with the Digital Territory Strategy, government supports, encourages and facilitates digital innovation and has a commitment to open data, increasing the transparency of government decision making.
Open Data Intent
The Northern Territory Government’s open data commitment is to:
- make data publicly available for citizens and businesses to create value through digital innovations that will benefit the NT community and economy
- improve accountability and transparency across government
- promote public participation by encouraging feedback about open data and requests for new data
- openly publish data that does not infringe on the personal or commercial interests of others.
Principles
- Open – non-sensitive government data to be published, with private or commercially sensitive data remaining protected.
- Accessible – open data to be readily available to everyone and able to be used for any purpose to enable innovation and economic development.
- Usable – priority will be given to data that is valued by the public; data will be licensed appropriately to enable re-use; data will be in a suitable form that enables interoperability (eg machine readable); and reliable in terms of timeliness and completeness.
- Free – open data to be free of charge for users, other than in special circumstances where substantial costs are incurred in data generation which need to be recovered.
Standards
Open data published to data.nt.gov.au will:
- be in a machine readable format
- include spatial coordinates or be spatially enabled where appropriate
- use Creative Commons licensing to authorise re-use, avoiding need for users to hold specialised software licenses wherever possible
- be collected from the source directly, where this is appropriate
- be depersonalised/anonymised where the data is about individual people or entities, and validated prior to upload to ensure protection of private or sensitive information (where validation is not successful, the data will not be published)
- include Application Programming Interfaces (API) where feasible
- be provided with descriptive metadata to facilitate searching
- be categorised into themes to give the ability to find related data
- not be locked into formats and protocols that make it difficult to use
- preserve the value of the data by providing timely access.
Open Data Terms
- Government data is information and records created or captured by the NTG in the course of conducting government business and delivering government services to the community. Data can be held in many forms from electronic records stored in computer systems to hard copy records (e.g. paper files and documents).
- Open data is government data that is made available with the technical and legal characteristics necessary for it to be freely used, re-used, and redistributed by anyone, anytime, anywhere.
- Non-sensitive data is data that does not infringe on the personal or commercial interests of others nor law enforcement activities, the administration of justice, the privileges of parliament, matters of security and defence and the interests of other Governments or excluded under legislation.