Grant / January 2020

Operationalizing Privacy for Open Data Initiatives: A Guide for Cities

Open data is a powerful tool for supporting digital citizenship. Sharing government data with the public can enable transparency, encourage civic participation, and empower communities. However, the information can be sensitive or carry privacy implications. Compliance with relevant laws and studying potential consequences can make the process costly for individual cities and even discourage them from releasing data. While this problem is common, there is, at present, no shared solution. The goal of our project is to create concrete, actionable guidelines cities can follow to provide open data while complying with laws and staying consistent with privacy expectations.