Switzerland, that opaque island in an ocean of data
The Confederation has set itself the mission(task) of increasing application programming interfaces (Apis) by 2022 to allow everyone to access information produced by federal administrations. But behind this effort of transparency, many questions remain.
It is an acronym on which all the hopes of the federal administration to simplify the exchange of information are based.After twelve months of negotiations, the Federal Council finally accepted this fall the parliamentary motion to increase the number of Apis by 2022. The Apis? Application programming interfaces that allow everyone to have access to information produced by the federal government.Thanks to these electronic interfaces, the federal government aims to improve internal and external communication and at the same time to forge links between the federal administration and its citizens.
The strategy is therefore to allow the direct exchange of information between administrations, at a «lower cost t», according to the Fribourg MP PDC Beat Vonlanthen at the origin of the parliamentary motion. Will the increased use of Apis help streamline processes while allowing Switzerland to catch up in open data? Not so sure about that. As a reminder, the Open Data movement militates for easier access to data produced by public administrations. At the time of the first claims in 2013, the Confederation was not ready to play the game.
However, our administrations are full of data relevant to our daily life: the number of nurseries per municipality, the crime rate, the m2 of plots to be built in the canton of Vaud, the list of vacant dwellings in Geneva, the number of hospital beds in French-speaking Switzerland. This data alone represents a wealth of information for citizens. Despite a legitimate enthusiasm for Open Data, the Confederation has long been deaf to the echoes of this information revolution. It has since shown timid signs of openness.
Since July 2006, the Law on the Organisation of Government and Administration (LOGA) has ensured that the Swiss have the right to access all government information. It is also necessary to navigate the labyrinths of the federal government to identify the sources. With the rapid development of information technology and the Internet, things are changing. Since 2011, a handful of hard-working Swiss have been campaigning within the Opendata.ch association for more openness, efficiency, transparency on the part of authorities and public administrations, to stimulate the competitiveness of researchers and business innovation.
Except not all the cantons are in the same boat. Even today, Basel, Zurich, Geneva and Berne are the first in the class in open data. Will the federal government’s IPA strategy eliminate these cantonal inequalities?Switzerland hopes to do so by adopting a model that has proved its worth among American technology giants.Amazon in the lead. Indeed, Jeff Bezos’ multinational company made IPAs its priority in 2007. This model of agility has enabled the Seattle-based company to grow to its current dominant position in the e-commerce market. Is this successful strategy transferable to federal government data? Especially since the multiplication of APIs raises the painful question of the protection of privacy and individual data. Switzerland will have to respond if it wants to nurture its dream of transparency.
