Getting smart about anti-social behaviour

THE campaign to “free our data” has gathered pace over a number of years. What started as rallying cry for web evangelists and freedom of information nerds has blossomed into a semi-popular movement backed by a UK broadsheet, and a number of public policy visionaries.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the so-called father of the world wide web (and not, as he is often described, the inventor of the internet) has perhaps done more than anyone else to make the campaign a reality, first by convincing Gordon Brown of its merits and then, from within government, by cajoling Whitehall into action (there’s a good account of this in last month’s Prospect).

And yet, despite the launch in January of data.gov.uk it has still seemed all a bit geeky, the preserve of people who talk excitedly of “mash-ups” and who use the word “code” principally as a verb. What exactly will freeing our data achieve, and will enough people be seized by to make the grandiose claims about what it can achieve actually happen?

This week, those questions appeared have at least been partly answered. ASBOrometer, the first smartphone app to make use of a public dataset has been downloaded an amazing 80,000 in its first two days, and at the time of writing sits at number eight in the UK iTunes app chart.

As the name suggests, ASBOrometer is a application that tells you how many ASBOs have been issued in your local area, and in what category. Despite having slightly less functionality in Wales (a survey of perceptions of anti-social behaviour only extends to England) the programme allows you to compare performance wherever you are.

What does this achieve? In itself, not too much. But it puts into the hands of citizens local information in a highly accessible form, for a marginal cost of virtually nothing and in a way capable of being “modded” still further. Alone it is a curiousity, but as part of a wealth of data – which data.gov.uk promises to furnish, and with the help of those geeks, it could put into use information that could mobilise voters, transform local campaigns and pressure the authorities into delivering.

The promise is still much more than the reality, but February 17 2010 might one day be marked as the day when free data began to change the balance of power between governed and government.