Now, whether or not this is founded or unfounded, you have to acknowledge that there's a growing
tension between the public and police forces.
You're faced with some advantages and disadvantages starting your open data initiative at this
point.
This example you can follow is the one set by the police chief of Dallas, Texas.
It's really hard to put a price on the cost of transparency.
Police forces, the rollover, are based on the military.
Vanishes, a lot of the legwork on policies and those kind of privacy assessments has
already been done.
We believe first that the data we have belongs to the citizens and we are the caretakers
of that data.
What I've learned in my experience is I should have spent more time engaging staff.
They have formalized chains of commands and protocol.
They are meant to be efficient and authoritative, linear, black and white, maintaining the status
quo.
On the other hand, open-given open data are based on questioning the status quo.
They are about network relationships.
They are about trial and error and agility.
Consumers are that the community has become way more mature than it was when we began.
There's expectations that you're going to release complete data sets as opposed to
trickle out data.
That was a big step to make to our mantra that the data was the citizens' data, not
the police data.
I don't think citizens, this was back in 2010, I don't think citizens are sitting at home
saying, I wish I had more data.
Fast forward to today, I think citizens are actually saying that.
These are the values of open-given open data and by choosing to come into this world you
will have to adapt to these values.
So I'm here to tell you, you need to have courage in terms of finding the data, releasing
the data.
And from my perspective, if there's any organization that has courage to do something, it has to
be this organization.
Submission that I sent in, there's 11 different recommendations in it, talking about format,
a little more concrete deadlines and the different goals that I think could be achieved
as we're moving forward on this project.
Assess all 2016 FOI requests for their ability to become 2017 open data releases.
Is that something that is being reviewed of the city as well?
Yes it is.
The more data that you put up in those data sets actually reduces the number of FOIs that
take place.
I'm very glad that there's a lot of interest and expertise here.
So a lot of people have brought a lot to the table.
I also want to be very cognizant of the potential late material consequences here with data.
I certainly, as we move towards transparency and understanding its importance, I'm there
to see exactly what we as an agency can do to support that.
And so I put together just a motion here and don't shatter too much, Chief.
I just say here to refer the report back to the staff to give further specific consideration
to whether or not in fact to create a stand-alone Toronto Police Service open data portal to
consider other requests for open data releases contained in the deputation of Councillor
Ainslie and the other August 18 deputants because there's been a number of things mentioned.
Three, the establishment of firmer deadlines for progress and the availability of data
sets.
Four, to give consideration to the releases made available and other standards set by
police services in other Canadian cities.
Five, consider other suggestions contained in the August 18 deputations because there
were several very thoughtful written deputations.
And then I just added at the end here, and that a police representative be assigned to
the City of Toronto's, is it an advisory committee?
What's it called?
The City of Toronto's Open Data Advisory Committee upon invitation to join.
So that we're sure that they get plugged in there right away.
If there are no other comments, we have a motion put forward by Mayor Tory and seconded
by Councillor Carroll.
All in favour?
Any contrary?
Here unanimously, and thank you all very much.
