A presumption of open data would help drive innovation in the UK water industry. OK, given the recent events at Talk Talk and British Gas this is probably the worst possible time to write a piece calling for open data in the water sector, but here goes.
From the Alhambra Caliphate to the coffee houses of Georgian London to the Internet of Things, open societies where ideas and data flow freely have generated innovation and created wealth. There are very few examples where secrecy and protectionism have done the same. There may be some short term gain in keeping others out, but it doesn’t last.
The UK water sector holds around 1 per cent of all data in Europe. Hidden within this dataset are trends, patterns and anomalies that could provide solutions to many of the challenges faced by water companies, from systems optimisation to understanding customer behaviour and much more. The problem is that companies have big data, not smart data, and no matter how good their analysts are they can’t possibly retrieve all the needles from the haystack. But there are hundreds of data analysts, NGOs and bearded hipsters from Korea to Guatemala who would love to analyse these datasets for free and could provide solutions for next to nothing: opening up gives access to a global analytical resource and to crowd-sourced solutions.
All this sounds a bit academic but the recent Open Data Institute (ODI) hackathon in Leeds used Yorkshire Water’s data and developed a range of new ideas and solutions. Similar initiatives are planned by ODI, British Water, Waterwise and others. Likewise a number of the European ICT4Water initiatives are looking at creating open data platforms around water with the aim of democratising water and encouraging wide scale public engagement and participation in water issues.
Clearly there are concerns about commercial confidentiality and data protection, but there are protocols for all of these, and other sectors have achieved both open data and increased security. In fact, having a presumption of open data should lead to a greater focus on protecting core data and adopting common cyber security standards across the sector. The Water Sector Strategic Dashboard, which will present high level data for the companies, is an excellent start, but why not go further and make everything available?
Jacob Tompkins, managing director, Waterwise