Vivek Kundra, the Federal CIO, is the backbone of data.gov.  The mission of data.gov is to “increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government†as part of Obama’s Open Government Initiative.It has been a key tool to help the public find, download and use different datasets from various agencies. The success of data.gov comes from public participation. Data.gov has been in transformation since it has launched based on the public feedback.
One enhancement Kundra believes will take data.gov to a new level is to build a “YouTube†of government data. Kundra told BBC, “Imagine a world where you have a YoutTube for data where anyone of us could slice and dice this data and share it with our family, friend and policymakers.â€
A blog post on March 15th by Linda Travers and Sanjeev Bhagowalia titled “Data.gov’s Future: You’re Talking, and We’re Listening†mentioned the newest enhancement: improved search capabilities. Data.gov, which was launched back in May, will continue to listen to public collaborators to make continuous improvements.
The concept of data.gov is excellent. However I am of opinion that there should be some means of shielding government information from enemies of the nation. I am an information security specialist, and I am aware that data that is friends take for granted can be used by enemies for all kinds of purposes. Please build technology into data.gov to tag sensitive information, and make it inaccessible to those who are likely to use it for bad purposes. Thanks.
Mano Govindaraj, CPA, CISA, CIA, OCP