There is an increasing demand for local government to share data and regulatory information frameworks at a national level.

ALGIM's Linked Data Whitepaper has an in-depth look at this new technology.

With existent data sources from disparate systems lacking common data schemas, a unifying approach is need. Linked Data is one method of helping join up these data sources.

Linked data uses web addresses or URIs (Uniform Resource Identifier) to identify and link disparate datasets and information resources together (using existing web technology) to provide meaningful and useful information about those resources. The ‘useful information’ can be returned in a number of formats (e.g., PDF); a standard format for attaching links to structured data uses RDF (Resource Description Framework). Consequently, as computers are able to retrieve and present more relevant information to users in a linked data environment, then greater interoperability and re-use of data between providers and consumers is possible.