City of Niagara Falls Launches New Open Data Hub

NIAGARA FALLS, ON - Open Government is the concept and practice of promoting government transparency and accountability through public access to government records and information. Open Data is electronic information in a computer-readable format, provided publicly for free and with no restrictions on use. The City of Niagara Falls supports the open government philosophy as a means to continuously improve citizen access and services.

Following nearly a decade of successfully providing Open Data access through the City’s website, a new and enhanced Open Data Hub is being launched where members of the public can discover and use items like spatial data that can be used to make maps, applications (apps) for visualizing the information, tabular data, reports, and live data feeds. For application developers, the data can also be accessed through an Application Programming Interface (API). Applying the Open Government philosophy, new data will be added as they become available.
 

The benefits of Open Data include:

• Support for innovation - Access to data supports innovation in the private sector by reducing duplication and promoting the reuse of existing resources. The availability of data in machine-readable formats allows for creative mashups that can be used to analyze markets, predict trends and requirements, and direct businesses in their strategic investment decisions.
• Leveraging public sector information to develop consumer and commercial products - It maximizes its data use and value, and reusing existing data in commercial applications improves business time-to-market.
• Support informed decisions for consumers - Providing access to public sector service information to support informed decision-making.
• Proactive Disclosure – proactively providing relevant data to residents reduces access to information requests, e-mail campaigns, and media inquiries. This dramatically reduces the administrative cost and burden of responding to such questions. 
• Increasing government accountability – Increased access to government data and information provides the public with greater insight into government activities, service delivery, and use of tax dollars. This helps to create accountability in government decision-making and fosters citizens’ trust.
  The City complies with the freedom of information and privacy laws in providing open data and will only release public information layers and data sets.

For more information about the Open Data initiative, please refer to our FAQ section and Terms and Conditions, which can be found at https://open.niagarafalls.ca.

For more information, contact:
Dave Etherington
Director of Information Services
City of Niagara Falls 
(905) 356-7521 ext. 4249
[email protected]