One Day BI ONE DAY BI Open data

What the licences mean

Every dataset here is free and openly licensed, but "open" is not one single thing. The licence sets what you are allowed to do with the data — including whether you can use it inside something you sell, and what you must say about where it came from. Here is each one in plain English.

This is a plain-English guide to help you get started, not legal advice. For anything high-stakes, read the licence itself — every one links to its full terms.

Open Government Licence v3

The default licence for UK public-sector open data, and about as free as it gets. Use it for almost anything, including inside a product or service you charge for, as long as you credit where it came from.

You can

  • Use it commercially — including inside a paid product, report or service
  • Copy, adapt and combine it with your own data
  • Publish and share whatever you build on top of it

You must

  • Credit the source with an attribution line (the publisher usually gives you the exact wording)
  • Not suggest the publisher endorses you, your product or how you have used the data

Watch out: A handful of government datasets sit under look-alike terms that add conditions — Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail address data are the common ones. Always check the licence stated on the actual dataset rather than assuming it is OGL.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

The international equivalent of OGL — used by some UK publishers and most global sources. The same simple deal: do what you like with it, commercially included, as long as you credit the source and note if you changed it.

You can

  • Use it commercially, including inside a paid product or service
  • Copy, adapt, translate and build on it
  • Share your results however you wish

You must

  • Credit the source, link to the licence, and state whether you made changes
  • Not add legal or technical restrictions that stop others doing the same

Watch out: Check for the extra letters. CC-BY-SA additionally forces you to release your own work under the same licence, and CC-BY-NC forbids commercial use altogether — neither is safe for a paid product without reading the terms.

Creative Commons Zero (public domain)

The publisher has waived their rights entirely — as close to no strings as a licence gets. You do not even have to credit anyone, though it is good practice to anyway.

You can

  • Do anything you like, commercially or otherwise
  • Use it without attribution, permission or notice
  • Combine it freely with anything else

You must

  • Nothing is legally required
  • Still sensible to name the source, so others can check and trust your figures

Watch out: Rare in UK government data — most of it is OGL, not CC0. If a dataset claims CC0, confirm it on the publisher's own page before relying on the freedom.