One of the most rewarding aspects of working in open data and open government is the great sense of community. This week, we want to highlight some achievements in Open North’s networks (both local and at large) in government transparency and civic access.
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Open North’s transportation director Stéphane Guidoin is featured this week on CIPPIC’s Decodify podcast. The episode focuses on volunteer geographic information (VGI) and the legal issues surrounding its use.
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The Montreal Gazette has written about two apps born out of the HackTaVille hackathon earlier this month. The apps, Velobstacle and Previxi, serve Montreal’s bike community and provide users with valuable information about their ride.
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In preparation for Right to Know Week, which starts Monday, the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner has issued a press release calling for public institutions to release more data and follow their Access by Design principles. As we mention in our Lessons from Represent series, access to information laws are powerful tools not only to release government information but to change government’s behaviour.
On the subject of Represent and the open government community, we’d like to thank our many volunteers for their continued support in contributing to our database and API of elected officials. We’ve made great progress collecting electoral boundaries of Canadian municipalities, but we need more help collecting information on their elected officials. If you’re interested in programming a “scraper” for a municipality, please contact james@opennorth.ca.