The purpose of this study is to investigate the current state of public Big Data in Seoul and suggest policy directions for the revitalization of Seoul’s public Big Data. Big Data is perceived as innovation resources under the era of 4th Industrial revolution and Data economy. Especially, public Big Data serves a significant role in terms of universal access for citizens, startup, and enterprise compared with the private sector. Seoul reorganized a substructure of government’s focus on Big Data and established organizations such as Big Data Campus and Urban Data Science Lab. Although the number of public open Data has increased in Seoul, there exists not much Data with characteristics similar to Big Data, such as volume, velocity, and value. Most of the developers and startup suggest extending the scope of open data policy and enhancing the quality of Big Data. Also, overseas cities set the foundation of Big Data by encouraging participation from the citizens and developing open platform system.

Considering the results of this study, Seoul should contemplate the following policy directions. First, the perspective of open data policy paradigm should change from the quantity to the quality. Second, it is desirable to focus on the governance for the revitalization of Big Data. Seoul’s Big Data group should be reorganized based on the rights of data, which is derived from stages of data life-cycle. Third, the government should concentrate on universal access through various online platforms. Fourth, the connection between technological platforms such as IoT and AI is recommended as it would encourage distribution of valuable Big Data for promoting the digital industry.