Where is Luxembourg Open Data going?

Open Data is a vast field. The benefits go far beyond the simple economic potential. Access to public authorities’ data is central in a democracy.

Our Open Data portal exists since 2016.  This doesn’t mean that, until then, it was impossible for citizens to access information held by the authorities. However, it was more complicated since each entity had its own access rules. Some data was resold at high prices, but an individual or company wishing to access that public sector data first had to know that the data existed!

Today, an entire data ecosystem is populated by the public authorities, as well as by citizens, companies and associations. So, we have this new structure, and we are trying to develop it further.

This is what we have been doing since we went online: simplifying access to data that the public wants to see, but also highlighting data which most people might not be aware of and, ultimately, contributing to raising awareness of the potential of this open data.

This is an improvement to the public service provided, since it reduces the time taken to access and process information made available by the authorities.

This is essential, both for citizens and for start-ups, who now have access to free of charge quality data and can incorporate it into commercial solutions. The data collected can therefore be used to train artificial intelligence, for example, and help position Luxembourg companies as leaders in their sector on the international stage.

The spectrum is very broad. From the quality of bathing water, to vehicle statistics telling you how many 1969 Mustangs are still in circulation in Luxembourg, via the various general development plans implemented by municipalities. The portal currently hosts 1,839 data sets, i.e. more than 24,000 resources.

One of the real benefits of the portal is its ability to allow various data, as well as different users, to communicate with each other, since the public authorities are not the only ones that can publish and update the data. Everyone can create an account to contribute to this ecosystem, because we are not in a one-way system. On the contrary, it is a circular form of exchange, which ultimately benefits all of Luxembourg society.

In the same way as the public authorities, any user can make their data available to the community. You can, for example, publish weather data from a meteorological station set up in your garden , hence actively contributing to a new dataset.

You can also suggest a re-use, i.e. a practical use, of raw data already available. One example is the Héichwaasser API, which reads and makes available historical river level readings. Or the initiative by an American, living in Luxembourg, who uses data from the Register of Natural Persons to determine the number of people living in the United States who could have a Luxembourg ancestor.

Another example, again from civil society: a proposal to list potentially dangerous pedestrian crossings, based on data from the land registry.

It is a very broad field in terms of form as well as substance. Reuse can take the form of a dashboard, a blog article, an API, etc. To date, we have identified the modest figure of 132 re-uses.

Last, but not least, users can contribute to discussions about datasets or re-use. There are currently around 500 ongoing discussions, for 2,134 active users on the site.