An interesting campaign began in this week’s Technology Guardian, aimed at making all data collected by government free to consumers and businesses. The basic argument is that as taxpayers have already paid to collect the data, why should they then pay again to access said data?
Imagine you had bought this newspaper for a friend. Imagine you asked them to tell you what’s in the TV listings – and they demanded cash before they would tell you. Outrageous? Certainly. Yet that is what a number of government agencies are doing with the data that we, as taxpayers, pay to have collected on our behalf. You have to pay to get a useful version of that data. Think of Ordnance Survey’s (OS) mapping data: useful to any business that wanted to provide a service in the UK, yet out of reach of startup companies without deep pockets.
It’s an interesting argument. The key problem though, of course, is that if organisations like OS don’t recoup any of their costs by selling the data, then they’ll need increased government revenue. Which means higher taxes for you and me.
So, the question then becomes – will the giving away public data for free provide enough extra tax revenue to (more than) cover the lost income?
Yes, says the Guardian. Just look at the example of the United States:
Pira pointed out that the US’s approach brings enormous economic benefits. The US and EU are comparable in size and population; but while the EU spent €9.5bn (£6.51bn) on gathering public sector data, and collected €68bn selling and licensing it, the US spent €19bn – twice as much – and realised €750bn – over 10 times more. Weiss pointed out: “Governments realise two kinds of financial gain when they drop charges: higher indirect tax revenue from higher sales of the products that incorporate the … information; and higher income tax revenue and lower social welfare payments from net gains in employment.”
The only way we’re going to get an answer is if we take a punt, and try releasing data for free for a few years.
I’d wager that, as the data becomes more and more important to our information technologies, such a gamble will pay off. But we have to take the leap now. If we don’t, the EU’s direct revenue from public data will become so great that it will be too hard for Europe’s governments to relinquish that direct income stream in favour of a nebulous future tax income. And by then, it will be too late.