GHOST RECORDS IN DATABASES: MUNICIPALITIES STRUGGLE WITH INACCURATE DATA

The absurdity of the current situation is best illustrated by population age statistics. According to publicly available data, Slovakia appears to have residents who have long since celebrated their 110th birthdays. In Prešov, official records list two 109-year-old citizens. Žilina supposedly has a 113-year-old resident, and in Kežmarok, databases even show two people who should be 114 years old.

“In reality, these people are no longer alive, yet the state still records them as living. They both exist and do not exist at the same time. And this is not just about Kežmarok, but about the whole of Slovakia. Our data simply are not properly maintained,” points out Ján Ferenčák, Mayor of Kežmarok. According to experts, however, this is not just an isolated “amusing” example. “There are far more serious inconsistencies in municipal datasets,” warns Igor Wzoš, an expert from the Slovak Smart City Cluster.

Experts agree that data for modern society are what oil was for the previous century. “The twentieth century was the century of oil; the twenty-first is the century of data. Data are the oil of the future, and those who know how to work with them benefit significantly,” says Igor Wzoš.

STICS: Bringing Order to Data

An international university-led project, STICS, is extending a helping hand to municipalities. In its pilot phase, three entities are involved: the municipality of Horné Srnie, the city of Kežmarok, and the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region.

The goal is to develop a unified methodology that can be applied across all municipalities and by the state, which urgently needs accurate data for its key decision-making processes.