Sharing is caring
Every government agency collects data, but it’s not always put to good use – agencies tend to keep it to themselves, or (worse) lock it away and never touch it again. As a team, we’ve been charged with pulling together data from across government and helping agencies use it in smart and secure ways. The more we understand about communities, the better we can meet their needs with services, products, decisions and planning.
We’re more than just datasets
We also want to help government employees to grow their data skills. So far data.nsw.gov.au has:
- Platforms, including the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) open data portal, spatial data portals, agency data hubs and secure data-sharing environments that enable people to find and use data.
- Policies and guidance to help people understand the rules around creating and using government data.
- Collaborative forums where you can talk to owners and users of government data on how to safely and effectively work with data and explore how data assists government to deliver better outcomes.
- Processes such as dashboarding, reporting, visualisation and analytics that help government and the community gain insights from government data.
Privacy is foremost
The privacy of NSW people is of the utmost importance with strong legal controls around government’s sharing of data, with all data is anonymised before being used. Data-sharing initiatives are driven by the need to resolve genuine complex issues facing the NSW community and government. To drive transparency and openness, we’re committing to:
- Communicating clearly about what we’re doing with data and being responsive to community concerns,
- Being open about how we manage risks,
- Tracking the benefits that come from data sharing and promoting good news,
- Being upfront about problems that occur through government use of data.
Data for all
Data.NSW isn’t just for data specialists, and it’s not just for people working in the public sector. It’s for everyone who wants to use and understand more about using data. We want the community, industry and government to engage with it – there are over 3,000 open datasets to start on. We recognise that we’re not the only ones with innovative ideas about how to make use of this information to improve NSW – if you’ve got ideas for how you’ll use some of the data, we’d love to know!