Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

[Jane Hornibrook <janehornibrook AT gmail.com>]

Hi everyone

I've pasted a press release from the New Zealand 
Ministers of Finance and Internal Affairs below which introduces NZ's 
newly approved 'Declaration on Open and Transparent Government'. This is
 very exciting news for Creative Commons in NZ, since it's a strong 
top-down mandate for the uptake of the licences by government (with CC 
BY as the recommended default position when releasing content and data 
for re-use). 

A enormous thanks and congratulations from CC New Zealand goes out 
to those within government and our open data communities who worked on 
the declaration and the principals (particularly Keitha Booth and Julian
 Carver), and to those who developed the NZGOAL framework which provides
 guidance for agencies in this area (particularly Richard Best).

Direct link to this work is at http://www.e.govt.nz/programme/opening-government-data-and-information/open-and-transparent-government

Best
- Jane 


BEGINS

15 August 2011, by Hon Bill English, Hon Nathan Guy, Finance, Internal Affairs

The Government is encouraging state sector agencies to release 
more of their data online that has a high potential value to the public 
and the economy.

"Today the Government is releasing a 
declaration that clearly sets out our expectation that agencies should 
release all non-personal and unclassified data with high potential value
 for re-use," Finance Minister Bill English says.

"Improving online access to government data has many potential 
benefits. These include creating business opportunities and new 
services, increasing government accountability and improving policy 
development by encouraging greater external analysis and community 
engagement.

"Allowing research communities to reuse existing data for new 
purposes will also increase the value gained from state-funded 
research," Mr English says.

Examples of data being re-used 
include New Zealand Transport Agency data in third party websites and 
iPhone applications, and the use of land and geospatial information for a
 variety of third-party commercial applications.

"Over the past decade new technology has meant government data has 
gradually become more open," Internal Affairs Minister Nathan Guy says.

"However
 the release of data has been ad hoc and there has been no clear set of 
expectations. These steps build on New Zealand's long history of 
openness and recognise that this data effectively belongs to the 
public."

The Government has also updated principles for managing government-held data and information to include:

•
 Government data should be released proactively in accessible formats 
and licensed for re-use unless there are good reasons not to.
• Information should be well managed, trusted and authoritative.
• Data should be free, or where fees are necessary, reasonably priced.
• Personal and classified data or information will remain protected.

People can submit a request for currently unavailable high-value data they want to use at www.data.govt.nz. The site already holds about 1400 publicly available government data sets.

The declaration, principles and Cabinet paper are available at www.ict.govt.nz.

ENDS