Crime Data Proves To Be Top Dataset In Cities Across the US
We came across an infographic by the Sunlight Foundation listing top datasets that drive engagement when published to a city’s open data portal. Most popular open datasets Notice anything? Crime related data is listed not once, but twice! So, why aren’t more cities publishing crime data openly? We’re not sure. However, whenever we reach out to a police agency to collect data to map on SpotCrime and send out in our free crime alerts , we make sure to ask for open crime data and explain what ‘open’ means. Check out the definition of open data here . More importantly, we do not demand exclusivity for the data. Some crime mapping vendors do this. Socrata , an open data vendor to cities across the nation, notes - “In addition to eliminating technological and usability barriers, it is important to remove legal barriers, such as distribution and copyright restrictions." All of the crime mapping vendors we're aware of have a terms of use on thei...