LAPSI News
The European network for high-level policy discussions and strategic action on all legal issues related to the access and the re-use of Public Sector Information
Updated: 7 min 47 sec ago
LAPSI 6th Thematic seminar & 3rd Internal Conference - Budapest 22nd/23rd March 2012
Early morning - by robert.molinarius on Flickr - BY-NC-SA 2.0
LAPSI is currently organizing its 6th Thematic Seminar and 3rd Internal Conference. The Meeting will take place in Budapest, on March 22rd and 23rd 2012. Additional activities are scheduled on March 21st 2012, along with the 3rd HUNAGI Conference and Exhibition.
A very first draft program of the Meeting activities is available here:
March 21st 2012
Afternoon: HUNAGI Seminar (LAPSI members are encouraged to attend)
Evening: 1st LAPSI WGs Informal Meeting for Policy Recommendations Discussions (By Invitation Meeting)
March 22nd 2012
Morning: HUNAGI Seminar (LAPSI Members are encouraged to attend)
Afternoon: 6th LAPSI Thematic Seminar on Licenses (Public Meeting)
Late Afternoon: LAPSI WGs Discussions on Some Policy Recommendations (By Invitation Meeting)
Night: Food-For-Thought Dinners (Open to Attendants)
March 23rd 2012
Morning: LAPSI 3rd Internal Conference (Public Meeting)
Norwegian Data Protection Authority bans Google Apps
The Norwegian Data Protection Authority has discouraged Norwegian Public Sector Bodies from using Google Applications.
The Authority stated that Google fails at complying with the Norwegian privacy rules since it did not provide clear information regarding the storage location of its users' data. As a consequence, personal data may be put in peril.
(Source: FT Tech Hub)
European Commission Data Portal Contract Awarded
The Belgian company Tenforce will undertake the development of a European Commission data portal (see the Service contract for further details).
The Tenforce company operates in the field of semantic technology and is active on topics such as linked open data and semantic web. Also, it is a partner in the LOD2 project.
The contract purchases services for the EC:
- to develop and administer a Web portal to act as single point of access to data sets produced and held by European Commission services (and by extension to data sets produced and held by other European institutions/bodies and other public bodies),
- to assist the Commission with the definition and implementation of a data set publication process,
- to assist the Commission with the preparation of data sets for publication via the portal,
- to assist the Commission in support for engaging the stakeholders' community interested in reusing the published data sets.
The total value of the awarded contract is 785.500, of which 372.500 will be used for work by subcontractors.
(Source: ePSIplatform)
psi.belgium.be new design
A new version of the Belgium PSI portal psi.belgium.be has been recently launched.
The portal supplies a directory of forms created and updated directly by each government administration. Once validated, they are published on-line.
psi.belgium.be is provided by the Agency for Administrative Simplification.
For more information: psi.belgium.be
Dati.camera.it: the Open Data portal of the Italian Chamber of Deputies
Dati.camera.it is online. The portal publishes and shares Linked Open Data pertaining the activities and the structure of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
The portal features data on the deputies, the Parliament's groups and bodies and the Parliament's activities, from the first legislature up to the legislature preceding the current one.
All the available datasets can be downloaded and re-used under the terms of the adopted license. Unless otherwise specified, all the contents of the portal are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
LAPSI 2nd Public Conference & 3rd LAPSI Award - Bruxelles 23rd/24th January 2012
00 Mont des Arts.jpg - by Jean-Pol GRANDMONT - on Wikipedia IT - CC BY 3.0
A two-days LAPSI meeting will be held at the University Foundation (Salle Félicien Cattier), Rue d'Egmont 11, 1000 - Bruxelles (Belgium) on 23rd and 24th January 2012: the 2nd LAPSI Public Conference 'A First Discussion after the Proposal for a Revision of Directive 2003/98/EC on PSI Re-Use' and the 3rd LAPSI Award on the most user-friendly design of a PSI portal in the EU will take place during the meeting.
The Public Conference will give the opportunity to publicly present the state of the art of the LAPSI policy recommendations on Public Sector Information (PSI) re-use. The featured policies focus on some of the major legal topics involved with the re-use of PSI; in particular, intellectual property rights issues, privacy, data protection and personal data treatment, competition law aspects.
The LAPSI members will discuss their policies together with external experts in the field of PSI, as well as with stakeholders and citizens who want to broaden their knowledge around the topics of PSI and Open Data (for more information: see here).
In addition to the scheduled activites, the winner of the 3rd LAPSI Award on the most user-friendly design of a PSI portal in the EU will be announced during the second day of the Public Conference.
The very purpose of the Award is to support any initiative which can be beneficial to PSI re-use policies for moving forward.
The Award has received the support of Infocamere and as a result, the most user-friendly design of a PSI portal will be rewarded with a prize of 1,000 Euros (for more information: see here).
The on-line registration form is available here.
(Please note: registration is free, but mandatory in order to attend the Meeting and the Lunch served at the University Foundation)
How to reach the meeting venue: see here.
The Meeting Programme is available here.
Three Food-for-Thoughts dinners have been organized at the Restaurant Point Bar (Rue du Pépin, 39, 1000 Bruxelles). Check the dedicated LAPSI wiki page here.
(Please note: each attendant is expected to cover the cost of his/her own dinner. Check the topics and contact the Project Manager by Saturday 21st January 2012 in order to confirm your attendance: projectmanager [at] lapsi-project [dot] eu)
3rd LAPSI Award: Finalists announced
We are glad to announce the names of the three Award Finalists according to the Call for Applications' Evaluation Criteria (see here):
- Datos.gob.es (Alicia Martínez Domingo) - 1st Classified
- InfoTorg (Erica Olivius) - 2nd Classified
- CartoCiudad (Alicia González Jiménez) - 3rd Classified
The winner of the 3rd LAPSI Award will be rewarded at the Award Ceremony that will take place during the 2nd LAPSI Public Conference on 24th January 2012, in Brussels (for more information: see here).
The Award has received the support of Infocamere: as a result, the most user-friendly design of a PSI portal will be rewarded with a prize of 1,000 Euros.
Piedmontese regional law on Open Data
The first Italian regional law on open data (Regional Law 23rd December 2011, n. 24, "Disposizioni in materia di pubblicazione tramite la rete internet e di riutilizzo dei documenti e dei dati pubblici dell'amministrazione regionale") was recently published in the Bulletin of the Piedmont Region n. 52, 29th December 2011.
The full text is available on the Regional Council of Piedmont website, here.
The joint memorial presented by the NEXA Center for Internet & Society and the Association of Legal Informatics Study Centre of Ivrea and Turin during the public consultation on the proposed law is available here.
Image taken from the Regional Council of Piedmont website - license CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 Italia
Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority in Hungary since January 1st 2012
Significant development in the Hungarian public administration for the protection of citizens has been achieved by setting up a Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority (in Hungarian: Nemzeti Adatvédelmi és Információszabadság Hatóság). This authority keeps the functions of the previous data protection ombudsman. Having a broader authority in case of abuse of personal data, fines of up to 10 million HUF might be imposed even repeatedly.
Attila Péterfalvi, an earlier ombudsman has been appointed by the State President as head of Hungary’s National Data Protection and Freedom of Information Authority for nine years. The independence of the new authority is ensured by legal guarantees and the length of his term spans government cycles. The website of the authority will open under www.NAIH.hu in January.
Another important development is the new Act No. CXII of 2011 on Information Rights and the Freedom of Information, which replaced the former Act No. LXIII of 1992 on the Protection of Personal Data and the Publication of Data of Public Interest by 1 January 2012. LAPSI Consortium member HUNAGI has the intention to invite NAIH Head Dr. Péterfalvi to the LAPSI internal Thematic Seminar and the Data Session of HUNAGI 3rd Conference devoted to Mobile GIS scheduled for 22-23 March, 2012 in Budapest.
Blog entry by Gabor Remetey-Fülöpp (HUNAGI/LAPSI Thematic Network)
Sharing Public Data: Piedmont excels in Europe
Thanks to its regional portal www.dati.piemonte.it, Piedmont built himself a solid reputation with regards to Public Data availability and re-use. In particular, the Italian region has been mentioned within the provisional version of the European Commission Communication on Open Data as one of the few examples of regional PSI portals, along with the Catalunyian PSI website (see here; page 4 of the Communication).
In addition to that, Piedmont recently adopted a regional law on the re-use of data produced by the local Public Administration; the law was approved yesterday, Tuesday 20th December. While the official text is not published already, more info are available here (in Italian).
The provisional version of the proposal for a revision of the Directive on PSI re-use and the Open Data Strategy also mentioned the LAPSI Thematic Network, which is a EU project funded coordinated by the NEXA Center for Internet & Society of the Politecnico of Turin, a Piedmontese center of research and advocacy. As mentioned in the proposal, the European Commission has obtained important legal analysis from research undertaken within the LAPSI thematic network (see here; page 7 of the proposal).
(Source: Regione Piemonte)
Open Data of the Bulgarian Parliament
Open data of the Bulgarian Parliament is a transparency and open data project that features a repository of data from the Bulgarian Parliament: it contains information on the activities of the Parliament, the references to transcripts of plenary seatings, the votes, the absences of the members of the Parliament and more.
While the website is not approved, supported nor maintained directly by the Bulgarian Parliament, the data is scraped from the Parliament website, fixed and enriched so that everyone can use, remix and distribute it freely.
European Open Data Strategy Announced today
This morning European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes announced an Open Data strategy for Europe.
The strategy to lift performance EU-wide is three-fold: firstly the Commission will lead by example, opening its vaults of information to the public for free through a new data portal. Secondly, a level playing field for open data across the EU will be established. Finally, these new measures are backed by the €100 million which will be granted in 2011-2013 to fund research into improved data-handling technologies.
The LAPSI Thematic Network has contributed to the reviewing process of the PSI Directive providing a legal analysis which looked into the legal implications of specific issues involving the re-use of PSI; such as exceptions to a default rule for charging marginal costs, the concept of ‘public task’ and non-discrimination, whether or not public undertakings should be covered by the PSI Directive, and licensing conditions (for further details: see the provisional version of the proposal for a revision of the Directive and the provisional version of the Communication on Open Data).
The Commission proposes to update the 2003 Directive on the re-use of public sector information by:
- Making it a general rule that all documents made accessible by public sector bodies can be re-used for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, unless protected by third party copyright;
- Establishing the principle that public bodies should not be allowed to charge more than costs triggered by the individual request for data (marginal costs); in practice this means most data will be offered for free or virtually for free, unless duly justified.
- Making it compulsory to provide data in commonly-used, machine-readable formats, to ensure data can be effectively re-used.
- Introducing regulatory oversight to enforce these principles;
- Massively expanding the reach of the Directive to include libraries, museums and archives for the first time; the existing 2003 rules will apply to data from such institutions.
(Source: European Commission - Press release)
European Commission major announcement on the PSI Directive expected soon
The European Commission is expected to make a major announcement on Monday 12th December 2011 about the PSI Directive and the future of Open Data in Europe.
Check the Europe's Information Society Thematic Portal for the latest news on this and related topics.
See also Opening Europe's Data, an article written by Jonathan Gray (Open Knowledge Foundation) for the Guardian Datablog.
The State of Bavaria launches its open data portal with CC BY license
The State of Bavaria has launched its Open Data portal on 6th December 2011, during the 6th National IT-Summit.
The portal adopts a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany License.
(Source: http://vermessung.bayern.de/opendata)
Data.gouv.fr will be lauched on 5th December 2011
Prime Minister François Fillon has announced the launch of the data.gouv.fr platform on 5th December 2011.
(More info at: http://www.etalab.gouv.fr/)
F. Fillon announce data.gouv.fr by etalab
Spanish Supreme Court decision on Regulation 3/2010 (re-use of judgments and other legal rulings)
A recent ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court has overruled the Agreement of the Supreme Judicial Council (28th October, 2010), which approved the Regulation 3/2010, on reuse of judgments and other legal rulings.
Although a dissenting opinion has been supported by several magistrates, the Court has finally decided that the Supreme Judicial Council is not authorized to regulate re-use of judgments and other judicial information since this function is not under its competence regarding their diffusion. Therefore, this regulation should had been approved by the national Government.
The Spanish version of this ruling is available here.
(Special thanks to Prof. Julián Valero-Torrijos, Universidad de Murcia/LAPSI Thematic Network, for having provided the information)
Slovakian Open Public Procurement portal launched
Transparency SK has just launched the Open Public Procurement portal.
The site gathers information on 30+k contracts since 2005 worth almost 22 billion euros. The site provides both detailed and aggregated information on procurers, vendors and business sectors. Using the application, users can easily analyze competitiveness or market concentration.
The application is available both in Slovak and English, it provides data exports and could be easily tweaked for other EU countries due to similar legislation.
The Open Contracts portal had been supported by Open Society Foundations, the Embassy of the United States in Slovakia and Siemens Integrity Initiative.
(Source: Transparency SK)
Analysis on the Open Government Partnership Transparency Policy
Open Access Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy have recently finalized an analysis on the Transparency Policy adopted by the Open Government Partnership.
The Open Government Partnership is a global transparency initiative which is jointly sponsored by US President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff (official website).
According to the analysis, the Policy is lacking of detail, with the result of leaving the OGP with too much discretion over important subjects. In addition, the failure of recognition of information as a human right, the overboard regime of exceptions and the failure of the daft Policy to build a system of protections and sanctions were reported.
Updates from the Digital Agenda Going Local Italy - Palermo 22/11/2011
A quick update from the Open Data panel organized in Palermo within the Digital Agenda Going Local activities in Italy.
The panel was focused on the PSI implementation processes, and featured representatives from Italian bodies and the EC as well.
It seems that further insights on the foreseen modifications of the PSI Directive should be released rather soon. Moreover, the EU open data portal is due to be released by Spring 2012. It is also planned to use such portal as a platform that federates the National portals (by 2013). Moreover, the forthcoming Horizon 2020 programme will cover specific themes regarding Open Data.
In addition to that, Raimondo Iemma (NEXA Center for Internet & Society) had the chance to present the LAPSI network activities during the panel, also highlighting the role of the regional dimension of PSI (using Piedmont and Italy as examples) with two complementary trends: regulatory competition (valorisation of the distinctive advantages of regions) and cooperation based on best practices, also exploiting network effects (each time a new region opens up data the value of the datasets already provided by first movers is increased).
(Special thanks to Raimondo Iemma, from the NEXA Center and the LAPSI Thematic Network, for having provided the information)
Spanish Royal Decree on re-use: English informal translation available
The Spanish Royal Decree on re-use for the national public sector information has been published on 11th November 2011 (see this previous news for details).
Thanks to the Aporta Project, an informal translation of the Spanish Royal Decree on re-use in English is now available (here in PDF).
(Source: Jorge Cancio Meliá on behalf of the Aporta Project Team)
