Adoption of the International Open Data Charter was signed by the Minister of Statistics on 9 August 2017, considered by the Cabinet Economic Growth and Infrastructure Committee on 16 August 2017, and approved by Cabinet on 21 August 2017.
The International Open Data Charter supports and builds on the New Zealand Declaration on Open and Transparent Government and the supporting Data and Information Management Principles.
“New Zealand has joined 17 countries, including Australia and the United Kingdom, in confirming its commitment to the practice of openness in government. As well as meeting increased user demand for open data to drive innovation, this will ensure we are accountable, transparent, and resilient in our use of data.” – Hon Scott Simpson, Minister for Statistics.
This reinforces the government’s existing expectations on agencies to be proactively releasing high value open data, and working towards an ‘open by default’ approach.
The charter sets out a set of aspirational principles and supporting actions that paint a clear view of how a mature, data driven and open by default government culture operates.
Implementing these principles and actions aims to reinforce New Zealand’s continued commitment to open data, ensure New Zealand is aligned with the global data community and provides government agencies with a modern and clear set of principles and supporting actions for accelerating the release of open government data.
The International Open Data Charter principles are:
“Seventeen Governments Adopt the New International Open Data Charter” image by World Wide Web Foundation licensed under CC BY 4.0 International.This work, “New Zealand adopts the International Open Data Charter”, is a derivative of “Adoption of the International Open Data Charter” by Stats NZ, used under CC BY 4.0 International.