In lead up to the bill’s next committee hearing, CA Fwd caught up with him to get some finer grain details on SB 272.
Introduced by Senator Bob Hertzberg of Van Nuys, the core of SB 272 is about making the hordes of public information more accessible. In its current state, the data is disjointed between agencies and the meaningful stuff is often buried deep in the website hosting it.
Robb Korinke explained how exactly SB 272 seeks to remedy this issue. “SB 272 would require local government agencies to create catalogs of the information systems used to manage data and make that information available to the public under the California Public Records Act.” Those catalogs would include information on the systems being used to manage the data and with that, the accessibility of the data could more easily be determined by a curious party. It would be a first of its kind evaluation of government data.
The steps that the bill requires agencies to take are something he calls “a manageable step for local agencies that realizes a lion share of benefits from a comprehensive inventory.” Korinke mentioned that it follows the model first step for any open-data initiative.
When asked about the end-of-the-line benefits that open data would bring to California, he said, “…cities, counties and other local agencies hold a vast amount of information on local businesses and other core economic indicators. This data also has tangible value to software and other application developers seeking to better connect Californians with info and services about their communities.”
Video of Robb Korinke’s comments before the Senate Committee and further reading on SB 272 can be found here.