5.3. Process for reviewing use cases

To facilitate the reviewing of use cases, the data utilisation working group will review use cases according to the process detailed in Figure 8. The owners of the use cases (such as the business representatives of City divisions) will describe their use cases with the help of a form drafted by the working group, making use of any applicable precedents. The use case form will request information on the data classified by content and usage (4.1 and 4.2). The process has a dedicated pipeline for the processing of the internal data of City divisions, decisions on the utilisation of which will be made internally in the division when the use case type is familiar. Cases involving the utilisation of data between City divisions and entirely new data utilisation cases will be reviewed by the data utilisation working group, which will then issue recommendations on how to proceed to the division’s relevant office holder and record the cases in the case database.

Figure 8. The operating model for the utilisation of data.

If there is a similar precedent for the use case among previously reviewed cases or if the data to be utilised is not confidential (the data is not personal data, such as data on the trees and terraces of Helsinki), the use case can be reviewed according to a so-called streamlined process. In this case, the division’s lawyer or the secretary of the data utilisation working group will issue a recommendation with grounds and inform the working group of it. All use cases and the grounds for issued recommendations (why the data was or was not opened) will be described and saved in the case database. The aim is that once the operating model has been established, the examples collected in the case database will help to directly resolve more and more use cases without having to be separately reviewed by the data utilisation working group.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation makes it possible to utilise data subject to the regulation for statistical and research purposes. The City has established dedicated permit practices for research projects, and cases involving the use of datasets for statistical and research purposes do not need to undergo the review process described above.