of Provision and Use of Public Data<sup>21</sup> is a good example of such legislation. Sixty percent of upper-middleincome countries have adopted an open data law. However, open data laws are not as prevalent as ATI legislation, especially in low-income countries. Another issue that is partially linked to the publication of open data is the adoption of an open licensing regime, such as a Creative Commons License. This allows users to reuse “public sector information for a purpose other than the initial public task it was produced for,” with few or no restrictions, including commercial purposes (UK Information Commissioner’s Office 2020a). Therefore, a sharing-friendly licensing regime maximizes the benefits of making open data available, enhancing opportunities for economic growth (European Commission 2019). Adoption rates for this regulatory practice vary across country-income groups: an open licensing regime has been adopted in all the high-income countries surveyed, while the adoption rate decreases to 57 percent of upper-middleincome countries, 37 percent of lower-middle-income countries, and 7 percent of countries in the lowincome group.

To facilitate the use of public data, another regulatory good practice is a mandatory requirement among government entities to use common technical standards to enable interoperability of systems, registries, and databases. Examples of such initiatives include establish standards for open APIs for G2G/G2B/G2C services, implement the “ask once” principle, utilize standardized communications protocol for accessing metadata, and rely upon semantic catalogues for data and metadata.<sup>22</sup> Saudi Arabia’s Yesser E-Government Program provides a good example of an interoperable data exchange platform, which allows citizens and companies to access e-government services on the Gov.sa portal (World Bank 2020). Similar platforms can be found in 43 percent of high-income countries and 10 percent of upper-middle and lower-middle-income countries, while this system is not found in any low-income country.

It is worth noting that certain categories of government data may not be suitable for publication under open data policies—for instance, in the case of personal data or data entailing national security concerns. Thus, public entities should evaluate potential issues of sensitivity in light of a data classification policy. This requires an ex ante assessment of the risks associated with the publication and adoption of protective measures to ensure the safe publication of personal information on open data portals, while allowing accountability. Data should be categorized taking into account the different levels of sensitivity across the different stages of the data life cycle, enabling effective and safe data reuse (Digital Guardian 2018). A data classification policy has been adopted by more than half of the countries across income groups, ranging from 26 percent of countries in the low-income group to 78 percent of high-income countries. The use of such classification is mandatory for government data in 13 percent of low-income countries, 20 percent of lower-middle-income countries, 42 percent of upper-middle-income countries, and 57 percent of highincome countries.

# _4.3.3 Enablers: private intent data_

The private intent data refers to data collected with the original intent of pursuing commercial purposes. Private data can generate productivity gains and growth in both developed and developing countries, supporting innovation, efficiency, and inclusion (World Bank 2016). Data on consumer behavior and preferences become the secret weapon to further propel business growth (Argenton and Prüfer 2012). MYbank, an online private commercial bank in China, uses big data to assess loan applications instead of hiring thousands of loan officers or lawyers for offline, face-to-face due diligence work. It provided loans

> 21 The text of the law can be accessed at:

<u>https://www.law.go.kr/%EB%B2%95%EB%A0%B9/%EA%B3%B5%EA%B3%B5%EB%8D%B0%EC%9D%B4%ED%84%B 0%EC%9D%98%EC%A0%9C%EA%B3%B5%EB%B0%8F%EC%9D%B4%EC%9A%A9%ED%99%9C%EC%84%B1%ED %99%94%EC%97%90%EA%B4%80%ED%95%9C%EB%B2%95%EB%A5%A0.</u>

> 22 Countries score points if their data exchange platforms adopt all these features.

22