About Punch

Government Launch Platform For ‘People Like You’

Posted: Friday 22 January, 2010

Holly Henstock

Something which caught my attention this week was the government data site.  The creation of the free national data website saw intense competition from a number of the country's most impressive software developers.

Aiming to make the government more transparent to the public, http://data.gov.uk/ reveals everything from where the nearest post box is, accident black spots, crime levels, to hospital statistics. 

All in aid of creating better communication between the public and the government, Tim Burners-Lee has revealed that all the data collated just needed a platform/ mouthpiece for the public to access.

The government has revealed the site will give more power to the citizen of Britain, not only providing them with new data, but also the ability to hold discussion around this information through a number of online social communities such as forums.

Valuable for the whole country, Burners-Lee has said that creating the site will allow us to compare our data to that of neighbouring authorities, such as the Americans who also launched a similar site in May.  The site which is still in its early days is already looking to add and develop new functions such as its Wiki.