Open Data, a resource for genealogy

Open Data - a window on the world ... and its data useful for genealogists

Open data, Smart Data, Big Data ...

Ah we hear about these data! Today essential, they include more and more subjects.

First of all, what are Open data? These are "open data", freely accessible information for free. All this data is made available for public and general interest.

Open data is omnipresent in genealogy, and each of us owes him a proud candle! Thus, the digitization of archives corresponds to this desire for transparency, of sharing. The civil status registers are the essential tools of any amateur genealogist or not, and their online consultation allows considerable time. Thus, today 90 % of the departmental archives have deployed digitization plans. 

On doit l’ouverture de ces données à deux lois récentes : la loi Valter de décembre 2015 sur la gratuité et la réutilisation des informations publiques, et celle de 2016 qui impose aux collectivités de rendre leurs archives publiques.  Cet essor de l’Open data est encore en cours, ainsi depuis janvier dernier, l’amendement n°CL689 de la loi Lemaire permet d’obtenir gratuitement les fichiers des décès de l’INSEE depuis 1910. Ces données étant récentes et donc encore trop sensibles, seuls certains organismes publics peuvent les demander. 

But the controversy swells

Some sites are accused of using business data digitized by the departments for commercial purposes, all of this raising a more ethical than legal debate. However, everything is not entirely accessible online, open data has its limits! The more recent marginal mentions appearing on acts that have become communicable and which would be likely to infringe the privacy of the persons concerned should not be displayed. The goal? To preserve this notion of privacy that Open data opponents seek to guarantee: they believe, the opening of data would threaten this. The CNIL (National Commission for Data Protection) is studying this sensitive subject with attention, some having pointed out "flaws" in the Valter and Lemaire laws. 

Note that there is obviously not that the archives to convert to open data, the cities have also quickly followed the movement, some of them are even real pioneers, as Reindeer,  première collectivité à mettre en ligne un catalogue de données ouvertes. Depuis, leur service s’est agrandi avec la mise en ligne du budget de la ville, des périmètres des ZAC, ou encore des mesures de rayonnement électromagnétique des antennes relais de téléphone. 

L'Open data It is only in its infancy, and many actors in public life as private is also planning to convert data to this fever.