City of Seattle Open Data Risk Assessment Report

The Future of Privacy Forum requested feedback from the public on its proposed Draft Open Data Risk Assessment for the City of Seattle. In 2016, the City of Seattle declared in its Open Data Policy that the city’s data would be “open by preference,” except when doing so may affect individual privacy. To ensure its Open Data program effectively protects individuals, Seattle committed to performing an annual risk assessment and tasked FPF with creating and deploying an initial privacy risk assessment methodology for open data.

This report is intended to provide tools and guidance to the City of Seattle and other municipalities navigating the complex policy, operational, technical, organizational, and ethical standards that support privacy-protective open data programs. In the spirit of openness and collaboration, FPF invited public comments from the Seattle community, privacy and open data experts, and all other interested individuals and stakeholders regarding its proposed framework and methodology for assessing the privacy risks of a municipal open data program. The public comment period extended from April 18, 2017 to October 2, 2017.

Following this period of public comment, a Final Report was published that assessed the City of Seattle as a model municipality and provided detailed recommendations to support the Seattle Open Data Program’s ability to identify and address key privacy, ethical and equity risks, in light of the city’s current policies and practices.