Over 6.3 million pieces of dada are free for access on the Guiyang Open Government Data Platform, and version 3.0 is online.

It is a dynamic cycling process from the government data open access to results achieved. The government, data users and the public constitute an ecological system, in which the government as the supply side provides data and the data users as the demand side make utilization of them and serve the public by developing innovative applications.

Guiyang Open Government Data Platform, as the first platform, in China, which integrates municipal and district governments, has achieved plenty of results after more than a year of exploration and construction, which include three revisions and upgrades. Data Opening Report of China’s Local Governments 2018 indicates that Guiyang Open Government Data Platform, as the leader and explorer in building data opening platform of local governments, ranks first in the index list of Chinese prefectural and municipal (including sub-provincial) governments.

In Big Data Expo 2018, the Guiyang Open Government Data Platform was listed in TOP100 big data application scenarios in “China’s Digital Valley” 2018. The reporter from China Big Data Industry Observation interviewed Liu Jun, an engineer of Guiyang Information Industry Development Center to get some insights into the application of the Guiyang Open Government Data Platform.

It is introduced by Liu Jun that the Guiyang Open Government Data Platform covers 52 municipal departments in 13 regions and counties (development zones). Enterprises may discover opportunities to innovate in business models and maximize the data value by using the real-time data released by the platform, including weather, environment, enterprises, credit, and so on. Take bidding for example, an enterprise can integrate the information released by the Public Resource Trading Center on the platform including bid award, bid invitation, list of enterprises and penalties imposed by the Bureaus of Industry and Commerce and Quality Supervision as well as introduction of enterprises, based on which an APP for providing services to enterprises may be developed through deep analysis on large quantity of data acquired from the platform.

Compared with enterprises, ordinary citizens are not so sensitive to the data dividend and they have not yet realized the value of data for bringing convenience to lives. Therefore, the Guiyang Open Government Data Platform takes some measures to introduce to the public and teach how to use the platform so that the citizens may benefit from data.

Liu Jun said that the citizens may get information of food and oil prices of the day, stadiums and sports facilities, instruction of route and space for parking and other data that are most closely concerned with people’s livelihood from the platform. Take the hospital as an example, the citizens may directly search on the platform for information of hospitals in the region and the county, and they may also use APPs such as “Building Livelihood” and “Healthy Guiyang” to acquire relevant information including appointed hospitals of medical insurance and drug prices. 

Over 3000 data sets and API resources including more than 6.3 million pieces of information are accessible to the public for free on the Guiyang Open Government Data Platform and the total visits amount to more than 2.1 million. Most downloads focus on statistics and information related to livelihood such as weather, food and oil product prices and traffic.

How to ensure data security when the massive data are open to the public through the platform? Liu Jun answers the question in some key points. First, the data security is ensured by management. The data are classified into different categories and the confidential internal data are distinguished from the data that can be shared according to Guidelines for Category and Classification of Government Data issued by Guizhou Province. Only such data that are not related to confidentiality of country and enterprises as well as individual privacy can be open to the public. Second, it relies on technology. Some sensitive data can be desensitized. Such information as ID numbers, telephone numbers and dates of birth may be concealed or released after they are technically desensitized. In addition to these two main points, some routine measures such as tamper-proofing are also taken. 

In terms of the future development of the Guiyang Open Government Data Platform, Liu Jun said: “the open data of the platform has basically covered all major areas of production and life, and deeper and wider application in the existing coverage areas will be developed in the future."