Over the last few days the project Dades Obertes of the Mossos d’Esquadra (the Catalan police force) has been presented as a sign of commitment on the part of the Department of the Interior and the Director General of the Police to transparency, following in the footsteps of few leading organisations in this field.
The project Dades Obertes of the Mossos d’Esquadra involves an important change in the publication of information administered or generated by the police. On the one hand, this involves a large volume of information which follows the principles of openly available data, in accordance with which anyone can use, reuse and share the information again. That is to say, this data can be downloaded and worked with (a new concept in continental Europe) as well as being used for consultation purposes. Furthermore, the quality data on offer will facilitate transfer of knowledge and generate innovation in the field of security, as well as other benefits.
The updating of data on the portal is predicted to vary in accordance with the period of introduction of the information in police systems and the process of generation of the different files to be published on the website, which have to abide by certain characteristics in order to be considered as open data.
In general, the period for updating is estimated to be one or two months after the end of the period of introduction in police information systems –monthly, every three months or annually. These periods may increase in the case of those collections of data which require the intervention of external services of the Director General of the Police.
As far as the territory is concerned, the data is provided by the Basic Police Area (police stations) and includes both the Generalitat police force−Mossos d’Esquadra and local police forces which make up the system.
The portal Dades Obertes has started off with 500,000 items of data, but in the coming months more new data will be released. The current open data is that which has been regarded as most important and which will be of use to the public, such as:
- Organisational data: operative personnel of the PG-ME, vehicles and police stations
- Institutional activity: administration of petitions from institutional organs, relations with the media and social networks (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Flickr)
- Police activity: waiting time to make a report, time required to respond to pressing cases, daily average of police patrols, incidents dealt with and hours of service
- Crime data, in accordance with the current penal code
- Suggestions, expressions of gratitude and complaints
- Preventive activities: contact with the community
- Domestic and gender-related violence
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