London could soon boast its own dedicated app store, through which people will be able to access government information such as maps of crime incidents, if plans to emulate San Franciso get off the ground.
The Greater London Authority is holding an event this month to ask developers how it can best make its data available to the public in a move that closely resembles the launch of an app store for San Francisco.
The San Francisco app store was unveiled last month as part of a plan to showcase the city's tech expertise as well as offering citizens useful information and resources based on information that would otherwise be kept from public view.
The event is part of a movement called 'Help us free London's Data', that will see an event take place on Saturday 24 October at London's Living Room in City Hall, where attendees will be asked to suggest how the GLA can build apps and mashups of the capital's information.
The organisers said: "We want the input of the developer community from the outset prior to making any decisions on formats or platform.
"On the day we'll be running a requirements specification workshop and a high-level technical design session to explore how we might do this in a way that makes sense for the end users - you."
Among the 35 people currently registered to attend the free event are Matt McAlister, the head of the Guardian's developer network; and Richard Pope, the co-developer of sites such as PlanningAlerts and Job Centre Pro Plus.
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