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Santa came early this year - now data sharing will increase!

Data

Imagine that a gray and snowless Monday just before Christmas can get the best of starts. Today, a report was presented on how public administration can become better at sharing data in an efficient and secure way. Investigator Erik Janzon's presentation was music to our ears and he proposes the construction of a so-called information sharing highway for the benefit of the climate transition, patient safety and the prevention of welfare crimes.

Sweden is lagging behind in making open data available and has data sources that could be used more efficiently, something that we at TechSverige have been pointing out for a long time. The report summarizes it well: There are great benefits for individuals and public administration with interoperability in data sharing, such as improved information exchange between authorities, better service for individuals, higher accessibility, participation, data quality, efficiency, trust and for innovation. It is therefore proposed to introduce a new law requiring the use of national interoperability solutions for data sharing in public administration.  

Increased data sharing on an equal basis is something TechSverige has long expressed the need for, most recently in our input to the Government's climate policy action plan. Better data sharing also strengthens the work with open data. This has long been an area where Sweden has been far from the digitalization policy's goal "to be the best in the world at using the opportunities of digitalization". Now, it is the EU that is forcing Sweden to make valuable data sets available - not as a result of this or previous governments' policies. With a new law requiring interoperability solutions, it may be easier to take a more comprehensive approach to data and data reuse in the public sector. In our report, A tech agenda for Sweden, we suggested that Sweden does not need to be the best in the world, but at least the best in the Nordic region at making government and public data accessible. 

Now the government has the chance to take the political and forward-looking leadership we have been calling for by taking the inquiry's proposals forward. It is proposed that Digg develops the solutions and may prescribe them. Regardless of where the responsibility ultimately lies, we want to emphasize the importance of close dialogue and cooperation with the business community, which is hungry to contribute. We need full speed ahead so that we can really make the best use of digitization and all available data for Sweden. Ideally, this should not take until 2030...