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open data does not include personal data, with some exceptions to balance other rights (e.g., transparency). However, there are tons of data owned by PAs that can be definitely returned back to the society because it does not include personal data (e.g., environmental data. Why are still so closed?)
And personal data should be seamlessly shared among institutions for specific institutional purposes. -
from my perspective this is still an open issues. Finding the right balance is something we need to work on, all researchers, PAs and also the private sector. It is not easy: aggregate means loosing information. probably we need to investigate more how to apply strong privacy preserving techniques that are available at the state of the art. I still see this as a very big obstacle because skills are missing, in particular in public sector. That’s way I keep on saying that a much larger collaboration with research institutions and PAs for instance is key to make progresses and break the barrier of the fear that usually exists when opening data that may have some impact on privacy rights
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oh no no, I’ve been studying since years fully decentralized approachs. There is no need to centralize the data in 2021!! For instance paradigms as Linked Data and projects like solid demonstrate that it is possible
I read that this was based on that region’s (Lombardia: ~10 million residents) failure to update the clinical condition of infected people. They would heal, but still be counted as infected (and infectious) by the model, which consequently decided for the code red.
Yes, it beats Belgium, where we have no idea which data and which models are being taken into account by our Comité de Concértation. it feels very random, with decisions like “we are re-opening hairdressers, but trimming or shaving men’s beards is still forbidden”. Like Andrea said, it does feel like being infantilized.
I just tried Twitter:
This thing, I have understood in these months, before I did not have the awareness, it is the thing.
Public data, epidemic governance and democracy.
It is a huge cultural and political issue, this we are talking about is not a matter of obsession with data, this is a daily and everyone’s issue.
The effort we must make, each in its own context, is to emphasize how important it is.
It is a dog that bites its own tail. If science is not independent, but data and also the documentation of the processes that produce them are available, someone else will be able more easily to monitor both institutions and research centers, and the bar phrases that we too sometimes express about too specialized topics.
Civil society and NGO that deal with these issues must be committed to teaming up, they must be prepared and ready.
We have done a good job of keeping attention on the issue, creating a large and above all new network.
But it is still too little. We will dedicate the resources we have available to do better and more in 2021.
For the very first long months of the pandemic, I saw people looking at the number tables, as if they were the Olympic medal table.
An unnecessary attention to the reading of numbers that in most cases did not add any information.
But I’ve also seen a lot of new attention and evolution. Friends, relatives, colleagues, journalists have had an approach with the subject of data and with the responsibility that one has in managing and telling them, which I had never seen.
For example, I have seen journalists asking for the publication of raw and quality data with a maturity that was not there in 2019.
I saw the data of the largest survey done every year on the quality of life in Italy, published in a github repo.
I have seen the Italian civil protection publish data in ways that will leave a mark. Less than this can no longer be done.
I made it long. There is a low overall maturity, but it is clear that this is a great opportunity. For everyone.
There is a lot of work to do
I could tell you that if the data is scarce it is difficult to answer this questionI could tell you that if the data is scarce it is difficult to answer this question 
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Transparency is a basic principle of democracies.
The availability of public data is necessary in order to involve the scientific community in managing the epidemic.
In the absence of transparency, every conclusion becomes contestable on the scientific level and, therefore, also on the political level.
Wow! What an important and controversial topic. We are speaking about statistics? Or do you mean the data coming from the tracing app? To the best of my knowledge the data of the app is under the control of the Italian Ministry of Health. The app in Italy was designed to take into account the privacy since its design. I do not see so many issues and honestly that data would be so beneficial to trace how outbreaks can be formed and where they are (in schools? A great debate in Italy and we still do not know!). At the end of the story, I am not sure the potential of the app was understood neither by people nor by institutions. Indeed it did not work, also because such an innovative element was put in place in a very old system that does not reason in terms of data for instance. So the app and all its data are both resulting useless at the time being.
Yes, of course. I would not want to open the personal data can of worms.
But even that is weird. The data from the Italian COVID app are on GitHub, but not on dati.gov.it. I guess this is because it is the company that made and maintains it that publishes the data, not the public sector. Capacity problems…
These are both important conclusions! Glad we could clear that up.
@aborruso, @giorgia.lodi, an hour has passed, and you have been taking a lot of questions. You too @Asjad, thanks! I think we can end here for now. Very likely some more questions and remarks will come in the next few days, maybe we will ask you to come back and address them.
Many, many thanks! This was fun 
True Alberto, that’s was the case. And BTW: after 1 year of pandemic do we have a shared semantics in Italy and in Europe? hmmm…
We need to contrast these situations and from my point of view open data could help a lot!
Thanks for inviting me to join this interesting discussion!
It’s not so simple. The license of ISS website is wrong, it is wrong for this context: it’s a CC BY-NC-ND.
Here the basis must be open science and instead we have the block of derivative works.
In those data we have too much aggregate data on many issues. We want them to be less aggregate, in compliance with the rules on the protection of privacy.
There are techniques to disaggregate and anonymize the data and whoever manages this must have staff who know these techniques.
To be in dati.gov.it institutions should properly include metadata following the European standard. It is not sufficient to publish it in github In this sense Italian civil protection has github but also metadata that can be harvested by dati.gov.it
And probably we could use also the data of the app itself designed to be privacy since the very beginning!
I am very glad to continue a little bit and I will continue also in the upcoming days. It is such an interesting discussion! Thanks you @alberto and @MariaEuler for this!
I will join the live chat on March 2nd, 18:30 CET:
This is the issue and that’s why before I was saying that we must tell the things as they are: that data is not Open Data even if they call it like that erroneously!
- I would have a party;
- I would tell everyone this thing, I would do a lot of dissemination
- created opportunities for teaching, but not only at school and in universities, but also in the concierge offices of the buildings
- I would take it as an opportunity to understand everyone, myself first, the value of data, social, economic, political
Yes… and the Civil Protection Agency knows this. But whoever made the open dataset of the app, seems to not know this, or not care. This makes me think that it was the app developer rather than a government agency. There is no sense of ownership of the app data by the government, no “this is my app, these are my data, and, by God, they are going to go on my open data portal”. And by the way, yesterday on Twitter I learned this:
First of all: The current Italian processes that deal with data are not data-driven . They are document driven meaning that PA typically asks citizens to bring a document that attests they have some characteristics (they are born, they took a degree, they are married, etc.). This is something that has to be changed and very soon BTW otherwise the famous once only principle will be never implemented
Secondly, I saw the classical behaviour: I write a lot of text in a website first, or I want to show very fancy diagrams and dashboard and then if I have time I provide the data. The paradigm should be the other way around: I take care of the data and its quality and around it I build all the rest (the website, the dashboards and the administrative processes). We need to target this, from my point of view obviously!
And let me add: let’s enterprises and other organisations reuse the data. PAs should be the platform that enables innovation and open knowledge!
… and this is why @aborruso is one of very few civic hackers whose fans wear T-shirts with his name on it:
I would be at that party too, Andrea!
Vaccination certificates are a topic that makes me think a lot.
I see too many risks of creating new classes, of creating new “different” people, new categories.
Personal data is an issue that affects us all very closely. We must face it with great competence and culture, it is a fact of democracy and civilization.
The politics that does not deal with it is the politics that we will not have to choose
“I love you too” (cit.)
Luckily I danced with you at many parties, and today I’m doing it here.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity too