NYC's Open Data Rollout Collides With Reluctant Departments

"On Thursday, the [New York City Council's] Transportation Committee was discussing Intro 1163, a bill requiring the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT) to maintain an interactive traffic crash map," writes Kate Hinds. "This is data that street safety advocates, community board members, and some city council members have been pushing for for years, because it allows people to visualize data."

"But the NYPD, represented at the hearing by assistant commissioner of intergovernmental affairs Susan Petito, is opposed to the bill." According to Hinds, the reasons given for the opposition were many, but they essentially boiled down to one: "a philosophical objection by the Police Department to posting this sort of...crash data on a site".

NYPD isn't the only city department flouting the new law. The Departments of Transportation and Education were singled out by Code for America's Noel Hidalgo as particularly uncooperative in public testimony.