The government office is beginning the process of commercialising its data, following consultations with the private sector. Amid a period of significant change for the government agency, Smart Dubai is set to begin a process of commercialisation in the third quarter of 2017, according to its Director General.
This year, said Director General of Smart Dubai Office Aisha Bin Bishr, the organisation would take the unusual step to begin monetising the data it has collected throughout Dubai.
The data will be spilt into three distinct categories: raw data; contextual data; and government-only data. Te data will be ciollected from a number is different sources around the city including Smart Dubai’s partnership with du, information provided to government agencies, and from public sensors measuring things such as road traffic and footfall.
“This second category, we will put effort into, by adding insights, context or merging it with different data sets. This will be commercialised,” said Bin Bishr. “We will start the discussion around monetisation in the third quarter with our partners from government and private sector,” she added.
Privacy concerns and the commercialisation of data has been one of the most polarising technology issues of the past decade. Responding to the suggestion that citizens might be concerned with this move, Bin Bishr said: “This part, actually, we are starting the discussions around now. There is a full privacy policy to cover this component”.
She added that “very soon, you will see a disclaimer coming in any transactions with the government to ask you if you’re comfortable sharing your data. Previously we didn’t put such a disclaimer, but now we are considering it, and it’ll be part of the policies that are coming very soon”.
Dubai’s Smart Government initiative, in its consultations with the private sector, has sought to understand their views on open data in addition to monetised data.
According to Okan Geray, Strategy Planning Consultant, Smart Dubai Office, the private sector is not against commercialisation. “Interestingly, the private sector is not against commercialisation. They see the value. We weren’t sure, to be honest, we thought they would push for openly-available data,” Geray said. But it makes sense that they would be interested, he added, since this is “value added data”.
Majid Al Futtaim, Emirates, and Emaar are already on board, according to Bin Bishr.
The move comes at a time when the UAE is attempting reduce its reliance on oil and diversify its economy, Dubai is increasingly looking for ways to finance new initiatives and projects without taxation.
However, Geray countered that whilst this move towards monetisation did have huge financial savings behind it, which would “enable Smart Dubai to have a financial impact”, it wasn’t driven by economic burdens. “Those global fiscal pressures are in the background for everybody, I think, but if we can divert savings to new innovations, it will have a positive impact on the economy” he added.
Source: Gulf News