The Hague University of Applied Sciences hosted Dr. Majdi Owda, Dean of the Faculty of Data Science at the Arab American University and holder of the “UNESCO Chair in Data Science for Development” to give a lecture on the positive and negative effects of governments adopting an open data policy.
Dr. Owda tackled the positive effects. He indicated that this policy would encourage entrepreneurship in countries, enhance cooperation between the components of the public sector, and raise the level of transparency and people’s trust in governments, in addition to its contribution to improving the quality of decisions that are taken.
With regard to the negative effects, he explained that the open data policy may pose a threat to the security of individuals, individual privacy, and ever-evolving technology. It may also create challenges in accessing high-quality data for use in decision-making.
