Open data is publicly available information that can be freely used and redistributed by anyone.

Examples include weather observations, address verification, real-time bus tracking, ABN checks and a national map of public toilet locations.

A discussion paper released Wednesday identifies problems and opportunities.

"Open data can create new markers for products and services, enable benchmarking across a range of data sets and economic indicators; provide opportunities to better segment markets; enable decision making to be automated or improved; and can improve transparency," the paper says.

"Areas commonly enabled by access to open data include geographic applications followed by meteorological, environmental, economic and business, social and traffic information.

"These are all sectors where business and broader society can benefit."

Chamber chief executive Robyn Hendry said access to open data was a competitive advantage for Canberra businesses.

"What we're trying to find out through the discussion process is what more can we do to grow the Canberra economy," she said.

"We're a city with enormous amounts of data, most of which is federal. What can we do as a city with huge amounts of data to harvest that.

"The discussion paper is to elicit the thoughts of what people would like to see."

Ms Hendry said governments were not fully aware of the opportunities and lacked resources to make all their data available.

"Harvesting data is not always a cheap exercise and very often it's not easy," she said.

"We're trying to identify where energy is best directed and what resources are needed to make it occur."

Ms Hendry said a Canberra real estate firm had experienced obstacles trying to use open data.

"It took an awful lot of time and money once they got access to be able to use it," she said.

"Businesses need surety around the quality of data and that the pipeline of data will continue."

The discussion paper says business opportunities stem from innovation.

"The value lies not in the data itself, but in the combination of innovative ideas and the opportunity to value-add to existing services, or create new services," it says.

The data.gov.au website lists 41 case studies, including Put a bird on it, which enables users to make ringtones and notification sounds from Australian birds.

The discussion paper says barriers to using open data include supply issues and privacy concerns.

"Much government data needs to be de-identified before it can be released," the paper says.

"There are also issues relating to data reliability, topicality and the perceptions of risk by government agencies, all of which can delay or prevent release."

Submissions close March 6 and interested people can complete an online survey.