Keeping Legislative Data Accessible

OpenParlData.ch provides free access to harmonized data from Swiss parliaments. We currently offer data on political actors, parliamentary proceedings, decrees, consultations, votes, and more from 78 parliaments. Researchers (e.g. political scientists, linguists) but also journalists and civil society organizations can use our API to create their own analyses, visualisations, and tools, thereby promoting transparency, participation, and innovation in Swiss politics.

We import data (mostly from websites and some APIs), clean, harmonize and publish them openly. The data infrastructure is open source and currently in beta. In addition to the API, we are developing standards that enable parliaments and governments to publish uniform open data. Over the next year, we will address the question of how we can efficiently and financially sustainably operate a data infrastructure that continues to provide crucial data openly in three years' time and how we can enable other actors to publish interoperable high-quality data. We look forward to sharing what we have learnt and hearing your feedback!

Presentation Slides