Do We Have a Right to Open Public Data?

The progress made by the open data movement is pretty extraordinary. A few years ago, data was something that only statisticians cared about, but today it is one of the most vibrant areas of exploration and innovation. I think that's in part because of open source's example of how opening things up allows people to experiment and make progress faster than keeping everything locked down.

But have we reached the stage where we can assert a right to open public data? That's the central claim of an interesting new report from Policy Exchange, entitled "A Right to Data: Fulfilling the promise of open public data in the UK." Here's part of the summary...