- Transparency. Citizens need to know what their government is doing. They need to be able freely to access government data and information and to share that information with other citizens. Sharing and reuse allows analysing and visualising to create more understanding.
- Releasing social and commercial value. Data is a key resource for social and commercial activities. Government creates or holds a large amount of information. Open government data can help drive the creation of innovative business and services that deliver social and commercial value.
- Participatory governance. Open Data enables citizens to be much more directly informed and involved in decision-making and facilitation their contribution to the process of governance.
- Reducing government costs. Open Data enables the sharing of information within governments in machine-readable interoperable formats, hence reducing costs of information exchange and data integration. Governments themselves are the biggest reusers of Open Government Data.