In Norway, all information requests are answered within three days. If not, a complaint is addressed to the king. In Taiwan, they have a Digital Minister, who pursues a radical policing policy. New Yorkers can see in almost real-time how much their police spend on donuts and bullets. And after the earthquakes in Haiti, people’s lives were saved with data.
Open weather data keeps us dry in times of rain, we have a national open data portal, Amsterdam was the first in the world to have an algorithm register, open nitrogen data informs government policy, and the new Open Government Act has finally arrived. Journalists also make eager use of open data: for example, to analyse the housing shortage, to reveal the loss of thousands of letter votes and to map the safety of all bicycle routes to schools in the Netherlands.
We tell all these stories and more in this White Paper on Open Government (Dutch edition only). We do so through interviews, case studies, timelines, infographics, photos, and so on. The White Paper not only shows what is going well in the field of open data; it also provides inspiration for the long road ahead towards a truly open government. That’s why it also contains open data-related advice and recommendations, tips and tricks, wishes and dreams – from us and everyone else who takes the floor.
We presented the very first edition to the Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Hanke Bruins Slot. Now we present the digital version here, which may also be reused under the CC by 4.0 licence. For those who want to learn something about openness and government… Enjoy reading!