Smart city data policies represent the rules, guidelines and procedures that drive effective data management and data sharing. These policies are developed within the scope of local, state and federal laws, regulations and organizational structures, so there is no single approach that can be applied across all jurisdictions. However, the evolution of new data sharing models and data enrichment capabilities does offer the opportunity to build data policies that are fully aligned with the future digital economy.
At a foundational layer, data policies form the basis of good data governance and optimize the curation and sharing of a city’s data assets. They encompass areas such as data integrity, transparency, privacy and consent. One of the guiding forces for future data sharing is the ability to integrate third-party partner data with city-owned data. This combination will provide a more robust data ecosystem to the data consumers who derive value from participating in this ecosystem. The application of emerging technologies and techniques for enriching the data is central to the success of data sharing.
The ATIS/US Ignite Smart Cities Data Catalog Specification was developed through the collaboration of solution providers from industry and leading North American cities. It is based on an architecture that connects data producers, data enrichers and data consumers, leveraging a consistent framework, approach and interoperable specifications.
The remainder of this paper builds on the concepts described in the Data Catalog Specification. It also provides cities with recommendations for leveraging forward-looking data policies to take advantage of new opportunities to engage citizens, businesses and data partners.