BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 573
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Date of Hearing: July 7, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PRIVACY AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
Mike Gatto, Chair
SB
573 (Pan) - As Amended June 23, 2015
SENATE VOTE: 28-11
SUBJECT: Statewide open data portal
SUMMARY: Requires the Governor to appoint a Chief Data Officer
(CDO), and requires the CDO to establish by January 1, 2017, a
centralized Internet web portal (statewide open data portal)
where the public can access public data held by state agencies.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Creates the position of CDO, who will be appointed by the
Governor on or before June 1, 2016, and confirmed by the
Senate and requires the CDO to report to the Secretary of
Government Operations.
2)Directs the CDO to create an inventory of all available public
data in the state by October 1, 2016.
3)Requires the CDO to work with the Department of Technology
(DOT) to set up a publicly-accessible statewide open data
portal by January 1, 2017, and authorizes the CDO to use the
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existing data.ca.gov portal to satisfy this requirement.
4)Requires the CDO to publish a listing of all data that may be
provided to the public, subject to any state or federal
privacy laws or regulations, as specified.
5)Directs the CDO to create a "statewide open data roadmap," as
defined, after each agency assesses its data inventory, and to
publish the roadmap on the statewide open data portal.
6)Requires the CDO to ensure that at least 150 data sets have
been published on the statewide open data portal by June 1,
2017.
7)Requires the statewide open data portal to include a link to
the website of any agency that publishes its data on that
site, as specified.
8)Directs the CDO to make the statewide open data portal
available to any local agency interested in using the site for
publishing its data.
9)Requires the CDO to publish an annual progress report for open
data within the state, beginning on or before January 1, 2018,
that includes an assessment of outcomes, innovations, and
state agency collaboration, and identifies whether there have
been resulting cost-savings.
10)Directs the CDO, in consultation with the Attorney General,
to publish a specified set of guidelines for use by each
agency by January 1, 2017.
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11)Requires the CDO to convene an open data working group,
comprised of state agencies' data coordinators, by October 1,
2016. Requires the working group to meet at least quarterly
to assess progress, discuss and recommend policies and
guidelines, share best practices, and coordinate data sharing.
12)Requires state agencies identified by the CDO to appoint a
data coordinator by August 1, 2016.
13)Directs each agency to identify any data set within the
agency and transmit the inventory to the CDO by October 1,
2016.
14)Directs each agency to create a plan for publishing its
inventory by November 1, 2016, and requires the published
inventory to comply with all state and federal privacy laws
and regulations, as specified.
15)Authorizes agencies to apply for and accept public, private,
and non-profit funding for the purposes of developing,
implementing, or managing the statewide open data portal
infrastructure and software, and specifies that such funds
would be expended upon appropriation by the Legislature.
16)Defines various terms for purposes of this bill.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes the DOT within the Government Operations Agency,
supervised by the Director, who also serves as the state's
Chief Information Officer (CIO). (Government Code (GC)
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Section 11545 and 12803.2)
2)Requires the Director, among other things, to produce an
annual IT strategic plan to guide the acquisition, management,
and use of information technology (IT). (GC 11545(c))
3)Requires DOT to approve, monitor and oversee state agency IT
projects from start to finish. (Public Contract Code Section
12100 et seq. and GC 11546 et seq.)
4)Requires, under the California Public Records Act (PRA), state
and local agencies to make their records available for public
inspection and gives a person the right to inspect any public
record, with some exceptions. (GC 6250 et seq.)
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee:
1)Annual staffing costs of approximately $293,000 annually for
an appointed CDO and one data liaison. (General Fund)
2)Costs to create a statewide portal could be as low as $125,000
to update the existing data.ca.gov website, or approximately
$234,000 for CalTech to create the portal (General Fund).
Ongoing costs for maintenance and hosting could be in the
range of $500,000 to $1 million annually. These operating
costs could eventually be spread to participating agencies
through the Office of Technology Services rate structure, but
would initially be from the General Fund.
3)Unknown costs, potentially in the low millions, for over 200
state entities to appoint a data coordinator, identify data
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sets, and create a plan for data publication. Additional cost
pressures, potentially in the millions, for over 200 agencies
to post available data. Actual costs, upon full
implementation, would vary among state agencies depending on
each entity's function and inventory of public data. For
illustrative purposes, the Office of Statewide Planning and
Development will spend approximately $220,000 this year on its
open data project. Smaller state entities with limited public
data sets would likely incur expenditures in the tens of
thousands annually, while larger agencies are likely to incur
costs in the hundreds of thousands annually. (General
Fund/Special Funds)
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose of this bill . This bill is designed to increase
government transparency and efficiency and promote economic
development by requiring a CDO, appointed by the Governor, to
oversee the establishment of a statewide open data portal for
the public to access state agency data sets, such as weather,
traffic, soil, water, geospatial, tourism, population, and
other data subject to the PRA. This measure is
author-sponsored.
2)Author's statement . According to the author, "California
currently does not have a Chief Data Officer to effectively
manage and establish a uniform state-wide data portal.
Currently State agencies SB 573 would establish a Chief Data
Officer would work with agencies to help standardize the
state's data policies and index the millions of records that
we currently have to access and centralize more data while
ensuring security. A CDO ensures accountability in one
individual for the massive amounts of data the state has
collected.
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"As agencies continue to develop their own databases, there is
little collaboration on the formatting and structure.
Consequently, data sets cannot be merged into a single
database until they have been "cleaned." This creates
inefficiency because staff from various agencies must
thoroughly comb through their respective data on collaborative
projects. To solve this issue, the CDO would create unified
data standards that would improve cross-agency data
collaboration.
"Furthermore, despite being the home of some of the most
innovative technology ideas in the world, California has not
established itself as a leader in developing a unified open
state-wide data policy. While some entities in the state have
developed independent open data projects, California still
lacks a cohesive state policy that standardizes this data and
makes it readable across multiple platforms. SB 573 would
improve California's goal to be transparent and accountable,
increase efficiency and cost-savings, and foster economic
development."
3)California's existing open data portal . California has a data
portal at Data.CA.gov, which contains some state government
data in raw, machine-readable formats that can be reformatted
and reused in different ways. According to the author's
office, since 2009 when the state launched its open data
initiative, California has lagged behind other states in
opening state-level data sets.
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According to the Data.CA.gov website, at least 100 million data
records are available through the existing portal, including:
vital statistics such as population, birth, death, and
marriage data; more than 50 million data records on education;
California port import/export data; state highway traffic
data; data on vehicle accidents, fatalities, and injuries;
tourism data; water resource data; and geospatial data. In
2010, Data.CA.gov launched a search function for several of
the datasets, charts, and graphs. The Data.CA.gov datasets
are available in variety of open formats including CSV, XLS,
KML, TXT, and XML.
The California Health and Human Services Agency and the State
Controller's Office in particular have been leaders among
state agencies in the effort to release data sets to the
public. This bill seeks to require all state agencies to
provide centralized access to all public data in an open data
format.
4)What is the practical effect of this bill? Since the state
already has an open data portal, and some state agencies have
begun to make data sets available through the portal, the
question is whether and how this bill will improve the effort
to get all state agencies to participate by sharing public
data sets via the portal.
The author contends that the bill will provide needed structure,
because the appointed CDO will be responsible for overseeing
the portal and helping to bring other state agencies into
compliance. While many of the deadlines in the bill's
introduced version have been removed in order to minimize
costs, the author contends that bill gives state agencies
structure but also the flexibility to accomplish the bill's
goals over time - without the need for an additional
appropriation from the General Fund.
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5)Privacy concerns . This bill only applies to data subject to
the PRA; however, the CDO and state agencies will need to be
careful in establishing the methods of converting agency
databases - or database extracts - to an open data standard
and posting that data to the statewide open data portal for
public use. Many public records are forms or applications
that contain personally identifiable information (PII), such
as Social Security numbers, health information, credit card
information and more. Such documents might be reasonably
withheld from disclosure or redacted to remove personally
identifiable information under the PRA.
The author and the Committee may wish to consider whether the
bill should require state agencies to address in their
strategic plans the issue of identifying and redacting PII
from the public data before it is made available on the
statewide open data portal.
6)Author's amendment . The author has agreed to accept the
following technical amendment to ensure there is no conflict
between this bill and the existing provisions of the PRA.
Add Section 11795.2 to the Government Code to read:
11795.2 Nothing in this Chapter affects the obligations of
any agency to provide notices or information to the public
under any other provision of law.
7)Arguments in support . The Data Transparency Coalition states,
"A few state agencies have already taken the initiative to
establish their own open data portals, including most notably,
the California Health and Human Services Agency and the
California State Controller's Office. These agencies
understand the potential of their data to be accessed and
analyzed by the public at large, while not violating any
privacy rights. By having a single portal for all agencies it
will reduce redundant systems that the state has purchased
from third parties and allow a one-stop shop for all
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California related data."
Accela, a California-based government technology company,
states in support that "California is home to a growing number
of civic technology startups that produce websites and mobile
apps that rely on open data. This is a growing economic
opportunity. A recent IDC report estimated that U.S.
governments would spend $6.4 billion on civic technology in
2015. Prioritizing the release of open data will help
position California at the center of this nascent industry."
8)Related legislation . AB 1215 (Ting) requires the Governor to
appoint a CDO and requires the CDO to work with state agencies
and experts to create a California Open Data Standard and a
centralized Internet web portal for the public to access
public data from state agencies. AB 1215 was held in Assembly
Appropriations Committee.
9)Double-referral . This bill was double-referred to the
Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee,
where it was heard on July 1, 2015, and passed on a 9-0 vote.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Accela
City of Los Angeles
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Data Transparency Coalition
GROW Holdings
Health Officers Association of California
Internet Association
Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed)
Socrata
Sunlight Foundation
3 individuals
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Jennie Bretschneider / P. & C.P. / (916)
319-2200
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