Governments have always retained public service data internally in their own systems with only limited information provided to the public and other stakeholders such as the business, charitable and NGO communities. However, the rapid advancement of ICTs coupled with electronic publishing via the Internet in the last decade in particular has enabled governments to exploit the potential of wider distribution and use of such data previously held in internal systems. The panellists will discuss how Big, Open and Linked Data (BOLD) can be utilized to drive innovation and what obstacles and challenges may be encountered. Empowering citizens, potential mis-use in identity theft, policy manipulation or market distortion, and the need to combine open data with closed sources will be discussed.