Trade Groups, Companies Call for Congress to Pass OPEN Govt Data Legislation

More than 80 industry groups and technology companies have called on House and Senate lawmakers to pass a bipartisan bill that aims to provide the public access to government data, MeriTalk reported Wednesday.

Eleanor Lamb writes civil society groups and businesses urged Congress to act on the Open, Permanent, Electronic and Necessary Government Data Act in a letter dated April 5 addressed to leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The signers said the OPEN Government Data Act would direct agencies to publish government data in machine-readable formats and develop and implement best practices for open data.

The proposed measure would also encourage companies to advance the development of tools that will work to facilitate use of government data.

“Adopting a policy of open by default for government data would ensure that the value of this public resource would continue to grow as the government unlocks and creates new data sets,” they added.

Among the 83 companies and trade groups that signed the letter were the Center for Data Innovation, Consumer Technology Association, Amazon Web Services, Oracle and IBM, the report added.