Rise and fall of the data wall 2. October 2009 – 17:39 by Fraser Henderson - ICELE

In the wake of a proposed duty for all local authorities to implement ePetitions in the UK the responsible government department has set about creating a ‘recommended data standard’.  This, the same week that Icann loosened the American grip on the internet and paved the way for a “G12 for internet governance”.   Out of interest, in terms of the European placement in a top-12, it’s Germany, France, UK, Italy and Spain on the basis of majority internet usage.

I think generating standards to help the flow of information is a good move.  In the case of petitions it should improve interoperability, the visibility of the petition itself and provide data mashing enthusiasts with a bunch of new projects.  Projects to develop an open and unified way of accessing Local Government information are hot - OpenlyLocal is a good example of what can be achieved.

Further to this it will be interesting to see if the suppliers can agree on it, and if the standard gets adopted.  Moreover if there are other areas which can be standardised such as eConsultation.  Tellthemwhatyouthink is already on this path.

Finally I want to extend my congratulations to the team at TuTech for nurturing PEP-NET and this blog.  If you haven’t “poked” Rolf or Bengt recently then now is your chance to show some appreciation for their recent efforts in keeping it alive.

Tags: inenglish