White House to mandate machine-readable open data

White House technology leaders are close to issuing a new policy that will change the way agencies release data to the public. Todd Park, the federal chief technology officer, said Friday the new policy is one of several steps to spur the release of more data from agencies.

"We are going to continue to enlist additional federal agencies in the open data initiatives program as fast track liberators of key existing data sets that could create large scale economics benefit while protecting privacy," Park said at the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology meeting in Washington. "We also, as per the recently announced Digital Government Strategy just this past summer, with OMB will be releasing policy soon that makes open and computer readable the default status of new data created by the government going forward."

The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy also is upgrading the Data.gov site and its corresponding communities to make it easier to put up new content based on feedback from developers on what are the most important data sets that have been released and how it was used."We will also continue to expand outreach activity to entrepreneurs across the country," Park said. "We've gotten a lot of interest from everyone from venture capital networks to entrepreneur networks to lean launch pad startup weekend type organizations and universities."...