Citizen at LARGE: Speaking truth to GOVERNMENT
Channel: Keith McDonald
Date: 2016-09-29

Welcome to Citizen at LARGE Speaking truth to GOVERNMENT
Volume 1 - Episode 1: Toronto Police Services August 18, 2016. 

Keith speaks about the experience of making a deposition to the Toronto Police Service Board meeting on open data and also comments on the Chief's reactions to hearing depositions around the subject. 

GET MORE:

Full Depositions:

. Mark Richardson: https://youtu.be/F9C6A-e-f48
. Richard Pietro https://youtu.be/J8-kqAPP0NM
. Keith McDonald https://youtu.be/2Ck3an-NsSM
. Chris Moore https://youtu.be/uDfsV1Jd25c
. Councilor Paul Ainslie https://youtu.be/lafh9U-ZBFE
. Chief Saunders' comments and Board discussion https://youtu.be/FaRHDoC6eZU?t=2h7m31s

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Citizen at LARGE: Speaking truth to GOVERNMENT is a pilot presentation brought to you by Keith McDonald. Future episodes cover open data and open government including what and why "open" is so important. Plus ... lots of discussion around innovation, bureaucracy and bureaucratic thinking vs. lateral thinking. 

http://mcdonaldkeith.com -|- @SherylsCrush 
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ADDITIONAL: 

Media Scrum comments by Mayor Tory and Chief Saunders:

Mayor John Tory:                   I think that there are a lot of organizations, especially in government going through the transformation from a day when the public expected very little, and it was mostly reactive when an event occurred, to a time when the public views most of the information, I believe, as theirs ultimately.

So I’m pleased to see there are steps forward that have been taken by the police service. But today I think we in effect urged them to speed up the process to see if we can catch up to other cities that are ahead of us.

The bottom line principle has to be that as much information as possible should be made available to the public in the policing area and in other areas. Because it’s the public’s data and it helps both with respect to modernization, it helps with accountability, and it helps even with cost containment.

 So I’m happy we’re taking these steps moving forward.

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Chief Saunders:          I want to move towards transparency and accountability and want to make sure we get it right. And I spoke about the material consequences that could exist.

Again. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: when we provide our information in its present form we always try our best to add context so that it’s as accurate as possible.

When you start putting out raw data my concern is that you start putting things out raw and your house or neighourhood happens to be in an area where there are a lot of dots, then that affects people when it comes to the value of their homes and it can stigmatize people when they’re looking for jobs.

I think years down the line we’re going to see what those consequences are. But I also understand the desire of people wanting to know information because it allows the public to then add to the public value conversation by looking at the data and seeing what they can do to help make the city safer.

So there is a bit of a teeter-totter affect to that open data piece and we want to make sure we get it right.

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