4th edition of the Report on Infomediary Sector Characterization 2016

Regularly, the Ministries of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda and Internal Revenue Service & Public Administrations, through the National Observatory of Telecommunications & the Information Society (ONTSI), publish a report on the characterization of the Spanish infomediary sector. A document that analyses in detail the activities and impact of an industry that, only in 2015, generated a turnover between 600 and 750 million euros.

The fourth edition of this report was recently published, which collects data from 652 infomediary companies in 2015. The report deals with companies specialized in the development of apps, products and added value services based on the re-use of public and private information, data which is obtained through the review of secondary sources, including public data providers and the Trade Registry.

This is a booming industry whose volume of activity has increased 46% and, moreover, according to the information contained in the report, has grown 10% in comparison with 2014.This figure reaches 63% if the tendency is analysed since the date when the report was published for the first time, in the year 2011.

Origin of the re-used information

82% of companies in the infomediary sector re-use public information, coming almost exclusively (96%) from national sources such as the National Statistics Institute, the Official State Bulletin, the National Geographic Institute, the Trade Registry and the State Meteorology Agency, among others. In the case of foreign information, the European Union is the main data provider (69%) along with other international organizations (63%), followed by administrations outside the EU (57%) and universities (23%).

It is important to highlight the role of open data within the sector, as the number of companies re-using information in open format has increased with respect to the previous study, reaching 69% of the total. Nevertheless, 68% of the sector still has to make specific requests because the information they require is not available.

Barriers and opportunities for re-use

The re-use of information, regardless of the source from which it comes, enables the creation of value added products and services, and is a great asset to boost the economy, employment and the progress of the knowledge society, especially in the area of Smart cities and social data. Nevertheless, the ONTSI study identifies as the main obstacle to infomediary activity the lack of homogeneity of information at regional and local level, this being an additional barrier to the following demands:

● Greater proactivity in the management of the information of the Public Administration information, promoting open data by default.

●  Development of ICT tools that facilitate the automation of the processes of access, refinement, treatment, enrichment and analysis of public data.

● Improved availability and quality of public data, promoting open reusable formats, interoperability and ensuring access to information.

● Promotion of public-private collaboration for the development of the infomediary market

As regards the future of the sector, companies refer to a wide range of possibilities linked to the development of products or services focussed on real-time decision-making, based on social network analysis, and data from Smart Cities, and  new tools that allow the automated data management and interpretation. In this sense, the advance in the big data movement and the tools for their exploitation and support will be key elements for the future development of the sector.

This report falls within the scope of actions aimed at encouraging the openness of public sector information and favouring its re-use, one of the most relevant lines of action in recent years of Red.es, implemented through the Aporta Initiative. Thus the 2016 edition of the Report on the Infomediary Sector Characterization provides greater knowledge about the activity of this industry, incorporating new aspects compared with previous documents by performing a systematic analysis of the sector, regardless of the origin of the re-used information, and including a set of good practices of infomediary companies from which recommendations can be made that help other projects in the sector.