Today marks the publication of more than 56,000 complaints alleging misconduct by Chicago Police Department by the Invisible Institute. Crain’s Chicago wrote a story: Chicago police misconduct records published online. Here’s the framing:
Chicago has championed using technology to present granular civic information on everything from towed vehicles to food inspections, in ways that improve citizens’ lives. But starting today, the public can easily access one data set the city had fought hard to keep secret.
And here’s what I had to say:
One of the leaders of Chicago’s open data movement, Dan O’Neil said he was eager to see the new database. O’Neil currently heads the Smart Chicago Collaborative and was a co-founder of Everyblock. While Chicago has positioned itself as a leader in publishing civic data, citizens still have “a right and a responsibility” to request data from the government. Some of Smart Chicago’s own initiatives highlight gaps in the information available on the criminal justice system.
“It just goes to show you that we’re certainly not in an era of default transparency,” he said.