Businesses will now be able to post detailed information through scannable barcodes.
The New York City Council has just passed a bill unanimously, which now requires each of the agencies in the city that performs inspections and then issues licenses, permits, and registrations online, to issue QR codes along with them so that they can be scanned in order to obtain that information.
The bill was passed in order to enhance the open data laws within the city.
Those laws require all of the agencies in New York City to post their information online by the year 2016. Christine Quinn, the Council Speaker, explained that “What we want is to make sure is that New Yorkers have the ability to access all the information that is embedded in these QR codes.”
The QR codes can be scanned by smartphone users to see more data posted on the agency website.
Each permit, license, and registration will now have its own unique QR code which can be used to obtain more data from the issuing agency. A mayor’s office spokesperson said that the mayor is in support of the bill, and that it will likely become effective as of the fall of 2013.
At the moment, the Department of Buildings is already using QR codes on their own permits so that smartphone users can scan them in order to better inform themselves. The Department of Health will also soon be adding the barcodes that people will be able to scan in order to gain more information about restaurants, day care centers, and tattoo parlors.
The information that will be available upon scanning the barcodes will not only include the health grade of a restaurant, for example, but it will also offer the smartphone user additional details regarding any infractions that were a part of the assignment of that grade, as well as more data linked to the recent inspection history of the establishment.
Additional agencies will also begin adding QR codes to the permits and other official documents that they issue, as they begin to include the relevant data online and the codes can be properly linked to it.
