Due to a glitch in NYPD’s training, it collected $1.7 million in parking tickets from citizens who were in fact following the law. The NYPD has now corrected this systemic flaw.

Open data policies are not just merely a convenience, they can be a very useful tool to detect systemic structural issues in governance.

Case in point: Ben Wellington from New York used Google Maps and took advantage of New York’s open data policies to show that the New York Police Department were issuing thousands of tickets on street where parking is in fact legal. Although parking next to a pedestrian ramp is allowed as long as there is no crosswalk, over the past 2.5 years, the NYPD has issued tickets in 1,966 of these spots, in the process it has collected $1.7 million fines per year against people who were actually following the law.

Wellington’s discoveries have prompted the NYPD to investigate its practice and it was uncovered that only traffic agents got full training on the pedestrian ramp rule while patrol officers didn’t. The investigation concluded that they were the ones who were issuing these unwarranted tickets.

The NYPD is now ensuring that all of its officers understand the parking law and is in the process of implementing a digital tracking system to catch these problems before they get out of hand.

Although there is no guarantee that other cities will be obliged to share their inner workings, but if this action has been of any use, it only goes to suggest that more cities should open up to data driven processes to further their citizen’s progress.