The Korea Forest Service (KFS) announced Wednesday that it received an "Excellent" rating in the 2025 Public Data Provision Operational Assessment conducted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
The public data assessment is an annual system that evaluates whether administrative and public institutions transparently disclose and systematically manage public information useful to citizens. This year, 684 institutions including central government ministries, local governments and public enterprises were subject to evaluation.
KFS scored 101.99 points including bonus points, earning the "Excellent" rating given to scores of 95 or above. The result stands out significantly considering the average score for central government agencies was 90.2 points and the average for agency-level bodies was 86.9 points.
KFS has consistently identified and released data directly beneficial to citizens' daily lives. In particular, the agency actively opened new disaster-safety-related information including nationwide landslide history records, wildfire occurrence data and large-scale forest type maps.
A notable achievement is KFS's release of "synthetic data." Synthetic data refers to data that preserves the statistical characteristics of actual data while being processed to prevent identification of individuals. This allows private companies and researchers to freely utilize data without concerns about privacy infringement, enabling its use in various fields such as AI model development and forest-related service startups.
On-the-ground outreach also contributed to the results. To assist digitally vulnerable groups such as elderly citizens unfamiliar with smartphones or internet use, KFS produced and distributed the first-ever Braille guide on public data utilization, ensuring data benefits reach all citizens equitably.
KFS plans to continue monitoring data quality and to identify and release additional datasets suited for the AI era.
"Earning the 'Excellent' rating is the result of our efforts to provide better services to citizens through data," said Lee Jong-su, director of planning and coordination at KFS. "We will expand the opening of forest public data so that anyone can easily utilize it and further strengthen cooperation with the private sector."
