DIPAS goes open data: ‘Climate Adaptation Harburg’ becomes the first procedure with a Creative Commons licence

Since the beginning of 2026, DIPAS has been offering the option of making citizen contributions accessible under an open data licence. With the participation process for climate adaptation in Harburg, a new feature is now being used for the first time in Hamburg: all contributions and comments are published under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence with the consent of the users. This makes DIPAS the first participation platform to provide anonymised citizen contributions via an interface for non-commercial purposes such as research, further development and evaluation.

This means that the contributions may be used and passed on for non-commercial purposes with attribution, but may not be modified – a clear, transparent regulation that protects both citizens and project managers. For Hamburg, this is an important step towards greater openness, legally secure reuse and simplified handling of participation data. From 2026, contributions and comments from new procedures can be used for scientific purposes without additional terms of use.