Open data responsibilities

Each agency Chief Executive is responsible and accountable for the implementation of this Framework. Each agency will ensure that its specific guidelines and practices are consistent with this Framework.

Each agency Chief Executive retains ultimate accountability for all data and datasets made publicly accessible from within their agency and on Data SA.

Chief Executives are to delegate to an Executive the role of an agency Open Data Advocate to coordinate open data activities and have oversight of data released by the agency.

Open data process

This Framework should be read in conjunction with the Open Data Process Guide and the Open Data Toolkit. The Open Data Process Guide takes users through a series of recommended steps to identify datasets, classify, plan, seek approvals and ultimately release and maintain the datasets in open formats.

Using Data SA

SA government data will be discoverable through Data SA. Data may be stored and published on this portal or to a uniform resource locator (URL) managed by the agency. A dataset entry and compulsory discovery metadata are required to be entered on Data SA for all open datasets.

See Data SA for more information.

Records of open data decisions

Agencies are required to keep a record of the approval to release data and relevant decisions relating to the release of the data. When datasets are not approved for open data, this should also be documented as an official record.

SA government agencies are required to comply with SA’s Information Security Management Framework (ISMF) which explicitly states that agency information assets must be accounted for and have Business Owners assigned. The Information Security Management Framework (ISMF) Guideline 7 – Asset Management requires agencies to maintain an information asset inventory.

To simplify record keeping requirements, agencies are encouraged to expand their information asset inventory to record an inventory of open data decisions.