Today, Dallas Animal Services announced DAS “field data” is now available on the City of Dallas open data portal. A quick review show information is provided by incident, is listed by Service Request # and shows the activity type, subtype, priority, address, council district, animal type, and the result of the Officer’s investigation, the Officer’s name, ID#, comments, the date/time of the call, the time dispatched and the time completed, the animal identification number if impounded, the tag # if available, Mapsco number, and if that’s not enough – the Geo-codes are there as well.
There are currently 6,175 calls listed. The majority are from October 1st to November 17th, with some going back as far as February. According to the announcement, the information will be updated weekly.
At first glance, this appears to be an exceptional tool that the public and animal advocates can use to better understand the volume and type of calls DAS deals with every day and the challenges they face. It should cut down quite a bit on Open Records Requests, which hopefully we free up more staff time to focus on saving more lives.
The only concern I have is that the Officers are identified by first initial and last name, as well as their ID#. That seems unnecessary to me, particularly in light of recent increases in bullying on social media and attacks on law enforcement. I worry for their safety and would much rather see just the ID#s listed, but that’s just my opinion. I know the staff and how much they care, and I worry about them.
If you’d like to explore the new portal for yourself, simply visit the DAS site on the City of Dallas Open Data Portal.
Thoughts on the new system?
Animal Welfare Talk 