Comptroller and COLAB-USP launches collaborative platform to improve the consultation and re-use of information from the Official Gazette of the City of São Paulo

Open and accessible format for machines, the "Open Gazette" should speed queries and enable the analysis and crossing of large amounts of data

Every day, thousands of companies, lawyers, journalists, scholars and citizens in general, consult the online version of the Official Gazette of the City of São Paulo to access laws, decrees, orders, bidding documents, appointments and other administrative acts of the direct and indirect Municipal Public Administration, of the City Hall, Legislative House and Court of Counts. Such content will be available in open and accessible format for machines with the development of the "Open Gazette", a collaborative platform that is the result of a partnership between the City Comptroller General (CGM-SP) and the Collaboratory for the Development and Participation (Colab) from the University of São Paulo. The partnership provides a number of initiatives to expand access to municipal information of public interest.

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The first stage of the project achieved the reproduction in the new format of the all data published in the Official Gazette of the City of São Paulo between the years of 2003 and 2013 (click here to access the "Open Gazette"). Representatives of social movements, the corporate sector, the academy, the government and from the civil society are encouraged to review the new platform and propose improvements.

To the coordinator for the Promotion of Integrity of the CGM-SP, Fabiano Angelico, the new platform is a concrete example of Open Government, which includes transparency, participation and technological innovation. "The 'Open Gazette’ facilitates small consultations with the possibility of copying and pasting the plain text in any program to the analysis of large data sets. It is possible, for example, to list all employees on commission positions and cross them with the list of corruption allegations or suits filed in Courts or in the Judiciary. Also it is possible to search for systematic acts with great potential corruption risk based on risk matrixes”, said Angelico. “The systematization of the data may also contribute to the strengthening of municipal management. Working with information regarding public announcements, the Administration may stimulate competition and reduce prices”, he adds.

The suggestions received in the first phase of the project will be analyzed and incorporated. The final version of the "Open Gazette" will be submitted to the Municipal Administration and may be serving as basis for a general reformulation of the Official Gazette of the City of São Paulo.

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