Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss Transport Canada's open data practices and related contributions to the Government of Canada's open data portal.
With me today is Kash Ram, director general, motor vehicle safety directorate.
As you may know, Transport Canada was an early contributor to the open data portal. In 2011, the civil aviation aircraft registry data set was selected for publication as part of the portal pilot initiative. Today, Transport Canada has nine published data sets on the portal, which are freely available for download and use by all Canadians. These sets provide citizens with easily accessible, high-quality data that relates to a variety of Transport Canada programs.
Six of the data sets pertain to our motor vehicle safety program. They are the vehicle recalls database, vehicle recalls-last 60 days, the national collision database, the listing of vehicle manufacturers registered with Transport Canada, and both appendix F and appendix G of the pre-clearance list of recognized vehicle importers.
Two of the data sets pertain to the marine mode. They are the Canadian register of large vessels, and the Canadian register of small commercial vessels. One data set pertains to air transportation, which is the previously mentioned civil aviation aircraft registry.
In terms of the strategy pursued by Transport Canada for identifying potential candidate data sets to be published on the open data portal, given that the department has traditionally had a significant presence on the Internet, our strategy has naturally entailed leveraging information that is publicly available on our external website. We have also given priority consideration to data sets proposed by the Treasury Board Secretariat and by departmental business units.
In addition to public availability, other factors such as citizen and stakeholder demand for the information have been taken into account. For example, citizens had expressed an interest for data on subjects such as reportable motor vehicle collisions that occur on public roads in Canada, and this is among the reasons for our publication of several data sets relating to the motor vehicle safety program.
The department exercises due diligence prior to releasing data for public consumption. In each instance, consultations are held with the responsible business unit to determine the scope of the data and ensure that the data set can be released under the open government licence. All data sets considered for publication are then also closely reviewed for accuracy and to ensure that no sensitive content is present. As part of our rigorous multi-step validation process, business units are first required to verify the data and to certify that there is no security, privacy, or other restrictions that apply.
Our experience to date using the open data portal has been positive. Canadians have provided some feedback on the data that we have made available by submitting inquiries online via the portal. Although statistics are limited, our data has been viewed and downloaded hundreds of times and at the recent Canadian Open Data Experience national hackathon, Transport Canada was 15th for the most downloads of the 36 departments represented.
We also have noted that despite the prior availability of certain information, the publication of some data sets has resulted in a reduction in a number of public enquiries directed at the department in relation to the national collision database, and a simplified process for providing biweekly updates on vehicle recall data was devised and implemented.
Moving forward, Transport Canada intends to continue supporting the open data portal by actively assessing and publishing new data sets that provide quality data in relation to all areas of transportation that fall under the departmental mandate.
Thank you for your attention. We would be pleased to take any questions you may have.