Some data is placed out of reach by contractors

[waldoj]

Frequently, government data collection is being done not by government, but by government contractors. For example, ShotSpotter is leased to cities as a service, and the data is leased back to cities. The public cannot FOIA SST, Inc. (ShotSpotter's manufacturer), and FOIAing the municipal government won't help, because they don't have the data.

In practice, this requires governments to modify RFPs to require that data collected by such systems be shared openly, as if the data was being collected by government.

This was an issue raised by a SRCCON attendee in July, at a discussion about open data needs.