Toronto Open Data is an open data initiative by the city of Toronto. It provides a "world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the datasets in all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose" with proper credit[1]. The goal of the open data is to make the "government open, accessible and transparent."[2]
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A catalogue of data such as Festivals and Events, Licensed Child Care Centers, Priority Investment Neighbourhoods, and Transit City have been released.[3] Further data such as crime data, homelessness data, city budget, councilor's expenses are expected to be open up in the future.
Toronto Open Data was launched at the Toronto Innovation Showcase forum on November 2, 2009.[4]
Many cities have launched open data initiatives. These include:
These efforts are similar to Data.gov by the US government.
The United Kingdom has open data available from a number of cities, most notably London, as well as an initiative to unify the formats of local city data called Openly Local.
As of 2010, Toronto Open Data required a click-through license for any reuse, which made it unsuitable for producing physical products (such as haptic maps for the blind).[5]