Berners-Lee cracks open Government data vault

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 21 Jan 2010 at 09:30

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched a new website that gives the public access to Government data.

The world wide web inventor was enlisted by the Prime Minister last summer to help open up Government data. Now that's arrived in the form of the Data.gov.uk website, which has been under beta testing with developers since last autumn.

The site provides a repository for NHS figures, crime data, environmental studies and much more besides.

Early applications built with the data include a service that allows you hunt down your local NHS dentist or track the value of your house over time.

Typically, for newly-launched Government sites, the website seems to be struggling under the weight of demand this morning, with slow loading times or outright failures to load a page.

Sir Tim claims the site will help stop the expensively acquired Government data going to waste. "It's such an untapped resource," Berners-Lee told the BBC. "Government data is something we have already spent the money on... and when it is sitting there on a disk in somebody's office it is wasted."

Although the site provides access to previously untapped seams of Government data, it should be noted that the stats aren't necessarily free. One of the site's listed aims is to make the data "easy to license", suggesting the Government's not about to give up on the royalties.