News/Research
04 Sep, 2013

BCNM Faculty Camille Crittenden Featured on the PBS Idea Lab

Camille Crittenden recently published a blog post entitled "Public Open Data: the Good, the Bad, the Future" on the PBS Idea Lab. Camille considers the positive results data transparency can have in communities as social media works hand in hand with citizen input. But she also notes the dangers of this free data, which can promote negative behaviors, such as vigilantism.

"Making public data more accessible is an important goal and offers enormous potential to increase civic engagement," Camille writes. "To make the most effective and equitable use of this resource for the public good, cities and other government entities should invest in the personnel and equipment — hardware and software — to make it universally accessible. At the same time, Chief Data Officers (or equivalent roles) should also be alert to the often hidden challenges of equity, inclusion, privacy, and security."

You can learn more about the opportunities and risks associated with open data through the one day symposium "Can Open Data Improve Democratic Governance" run by the CITRIS Data and Democracy Initiative and UC Berkeley's Institute for Governmental Studies on September 12. Visit http://tinyurl.com/citris-opendata for agenda and registration.