Public Sector Information

Transcrição

1 : Towards the 2008 review of the PSI Directive on PSI Use ECP-2005-PSI /ePSIPlus Public Sector Information A collation of country reports provided by the Thematic Network Partners Owner: epsiplus Project Editor: C.E.H.Corbin Version: V2.1 Date: 24 th February 2007

2 Change Control Record Date Version Editor Status Purpose DV1.0 Chris Corbin Internal Collation of reports received from epsiplus partners over the period June to September DV1.2 Chris Corbin Internal Austria, France, Slovenia added DV1.3 Chris Corbin Internal Lithuania added. Austria and Czech Republic updated DV1.4 Chris Corbin Internal Luxembourg added. UK updated DV1.5 Chris Corbin Internal Czech Republic and Malta updates added DV1.6 Chris Corbin Internal Latvia added Chris Corbin Public First public version of the collation of country reports from 20 countries. Reports provided by epsiplus thematic network partner Chris Corbin Public Irish report updated at request of Irish National partner. Version 1.1 replaces version 1. Version 1 withdrawn Chris Corbin Public Reports from Cyprus and Norway added. The Belgium, Finland and UK reports updated. Annex D added to include draft PSI transposition for Portugal. Czech Republic and Romanian country reports edited. Version 2 replaces version 1.1. Version 1.1 withdrawn Chris Corbin Public Introduction updated. Correction to the Austrian borders. Updates for Austria, Cyprus, and Germany added. The reports for Latvia and the Netherlands have been replaced with new updated reports. This report has been produced and prepared as a support document to the epsiplus projects activities. Best endeavours have been taken to ensure the document is correct at the time of publication. Contributions and feedback are welcome and should be submitted to Chris.Corbin@epsiplus.net. The report maybe reproduced providing acknowledgement is made to this report and the epsiplus Thematic Network. For further information visit Europe s one stop shop on Public Sector Information at: Legal Disclaimer 2006 epsiplus - This document and all material therein has been compiled with great care; however, the author, editor and/or publisher and/or any party within the epsiplus project or its predecessor epsinet consortium cannot be held liable in any way for the consequences of using the content of this document and/or any material referenced therein. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 2 24 February 2007

3 Contents Introduction 5 6 Austria 6 Belgium 8 Cyprus 11 Czech Republic 12 Estonia 15 Finland 17 France 19 Germany 22 Gibraltar 24 Greece 25 Hungary 26 Ireland 27 Latvia 29 Lithuania 32 Luxembourg 33 Malta 36 Netherlands 37 Norway 41 Poland 42 Portugal 45 Romania 47 Slovenia 49 United Kingdom 50 Annex A: Hungary PSI document 57 Annex B: Draft Latvian Law 61 Annex C: Malta OPM Circular No 31/ Annex D: Portugal draft transposition 67 epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 3 24 February 2007

4 Map Source: Copyright: The European Commission owns copyright of the maps but reproduction is authorized. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 4 24 February 2007

5 Introduction This document contains a collation of reports provided by the epsiplus Thematic Network Partners and information provided by PSI stakeholders across Europe. The content has an important role within the project as it supports the many and varied activities (both formal and informal) and deliverables within the epsiplus project. This document supplements the epsiplus Country reports that will be produced after each National meeting has been held. This document is not a formal deliverable within the context of the epsiplus project and contract. The following epsiplus network colleagues have provided the information contained within the following country reports. Country Austria Belgium Cyprus Czech Republic Estonia Finland France Germany Gibraltar Greece Hungary Ireland Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovenia UK Name Manfred Schrenk Gerda Schennach Gerhard Wagner Dominique De Vos Sophie Gregoire Marinos Ioannides Chris Corbin Vránová Dagmar Toth Attila Jan Kroužek Liia Hänni Paavo Paloheimo Norbert Paquel Chris Corbin Gerhard Wagner Chris Corbin Kalli Angeletopoulo Bea Sáfár Don Lehane Inese Betaga Kestutis Andrijauskas Attila Toth Angele Giuliano Cynthia Tomasuolo Marc de Vries Robbin te Velde Mette Bredengen Wojciech Sadowicz Ricardo Fonseca Diana Lupulescu Alex Petrovic Chris Corbin The PSI Directive came into force at the EU level on the 31 December 2003 and it gave Member States 18 months to transpose the PSI Directive into their national legislation. One of the objectives of the PSI Directive is to provide a framework that assists cross-border applications. Each country report includes the number of land borders shared with other countries. The full details of Member State transpositions of the Directive 2003/98/EC are available on the epsiplus web site under Reports Member State Transpositions. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 5 24 February 2007

6 Austria Austria shares borders with eight countries: Czech Republic Germany Hungary Italy Liechtenstein Slovakia Slovenia Switzerland Country Report September What is the situation of the implementation of PSI-guideline in Austria? The legal implementation into national law is called Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz (IWG). Austria is a small country with a total population of 8 million - still there are 9 states (Laender) and basically the PSI-topic falls to their responsibility to implement and comply, although also the federal state has some responsibility. So the result is that there is not one single law, but each of the states makes it s own one, meaning that there are 10 (yes, TEN!!!) IWGs in Austria (9 for the states, one for the federal level). If the idea of PSI-guideline was to ease and standardize the way of obtaining and using PSI Austria is a good example how things can become even more complicated although everybody just wants the best. As at 27 September 2006 five IWG (from the 10 to be) are decided according to the 2003/98/EG Guideline: Federal Level: Bundesgesetz über die Weiterverwendung von Informationen öffentlicher Stellen (Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz IWG) Source: BGBl. Nr. 135/2005 vom 18.Nov Federal State Level: Vienna: Wiener Landesgesetz über die Weiterverwendung von Informationen öffentlicher Stellen Wiener Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz (WIWG) Source: LGBl. Nr. 52/2005 vom 20.Sep epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 6 24 February 2007

7 df Carinthia: Kärntner Informations- und Statistikgesetz (K-ISG) Source: LGBl.Nr. 70/2005 vom 1.Nov latt_38.pdf Upper Austria: Oö. Auskunftspflicht-, Datenschutz- und Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz <javascript:top.showdocument%20(4)> Source: LGBl.Nr. 46/1988 < last edit: LGBl. Nr. 86/2006 vom 31.Jul.2006 (Implementation of 2003/98/EG) %2F2006%20ober%C3%B6sterreich%22 Vorarlberg: Gesetz über die Weiterverwendung von Dokumenten öffentlicher Stellen (Dokumenten- Weiterverwendungsgesetz DokWG) Source: LGBl.Nr. 42/2006 vom 13.Sep (Draft) A very good overview of the topic and the actual discussion in German-speaking countries is given on the website < created by Christopher Brosch. Update 31 st January 2007 by Gerhard Wagner 1. Data holdings: National public data holdings fall within the federal Act, whereas the regional and local data holdings are ruled by Laender-legislation. There is no conflict of federal and Laender-legislation. 2. Data quality of public databases The new Austrian government has decided by the middle of January to turn the 14 years old public databases of consolidated Austrian law (not authentic) into an authentic one. This is part of a gradual reform of the constitution, although the efforts to draft a complete NEW constitution failed. But one of the common ideas was to raise the level of quality of that non-authentic consolidated version (similar ideas do exist also on EU-level by the Commission). 3. Use of Public Registers There is plenty of national legislation in the EU-countries (leges speciales), which rule the use and often also re-use of public registers. This information does currently missed in the overview. It is important to mention that since our ministry of justice argues that leges speciales have higher priority then the PSI-Directive. Examples: - Act ruling the company register - Act ruling the land-register - Act ruling the citizens register Similar acts may well exist in other EU-countries and it would be of interest to establish whether they also regulate re-use or even prevent re-use as for example the two cases in Austria. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 7 24 February 2007

8 Belgium Belgium shares borders with four countries: France Germany Luxembourg Netherlands Status report as at the 28 th July 2006 The federal draft law, implementing PSI directive, has been sent to the Parliament on the 12 th July 2006, after having been discussed in the Council of Ministers on the 30 th June The Chamber of Deputies will discuss the draft according to the emergency procedure. This text and an updated progress report in French and Dutch are available on our website: or on the Chamber site: /wwwcfm/search/fiche.cfm?id=51k2634&db=flwb&legislat=51. This law has to be completed by several royal decrees. Regions and Communities (Flanders, Wallonia, French- and German-speaking community and Brussels) have each to vote their own decree. The draft decrees have been or have to be discussed by the Government. For example, the Walloon decree has already been approved by the Government and will be submitted to the Walloon Parliament soon. All draft decrees are widely inspired by the federal draft law. A consultation has been organized to ensure the concordance of our legislations. The Agency for Administrative Simplification works actively on the implementation of the PSI Directive and has established a network of the main Belgian 'public sector bodies' (National Geographic Institute, Crossroads Bank for Enterprises, Crossroads Bank for Social Security, etc.) in order to consult them and to help them develop their tools (licences, costs analysis and evaluation of the charges). The Agency sends regularly progress reports to these bodies and discuss with them about specific problems. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 8 24 February 2007

9 Status report as of the 11 th January 2007 Two Walloon decrees (regional laws) implementing the PSI directive have been published in the Belgian official journal on the 27 th & 28 th December The decree published on the 27 th December 2006 appears in three languages. French version - pages 65 to 67. German version - pages 68 to 70. Dutch version - pages 71 to WBXPBXOML3L4 The decree published on the 28 th December 2006 appears in two languages. French version page 69. Dutch version page MRTNDQJA Bibliographic References 27 December 2006 Page 65 MINISTERE DE LA REGION WALLONNE F [2006/204183] 14 DECEMBRE Décret portant transposition de la Directive 2003/98/CE du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 17 novembre 2003 concernant la réutilisation des informations du secteur public (1) 27 December 2006 Page 67 MINISTERIUM DER WALLONISCHEN REGION D [2006/204183] 14. DEZEMBER 2006 Dekret zur Umsetzung der Richtlinie 2003/98/EG des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rates vom 17. November 2003 über die Weiterverwendung von Informationen des öffentlichen Sektors (1) 27 December 2006 Page 71 MINISTERIE VAN HET WAALSE GEWEST N [2006/204183] 14 DECEMBER Decreet houdende omzetting van Richtlijn 2003/98/EG van het Europees Parlement en de Raad van 17 november 2003 inzake het hergebruik van overheidsinformatie en betreffende de openbaarheid van bestuur 28 December 2006 Page 69 MINISTERE DE LA REGION WALLONNE F [2006/204184] 14 DECEMBRE Décret portant transposition de la Directive 2003/98/CE du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 17 novembre 2003 concernant la réutilisation des informations du secteur public et relatif à la publicité de l administration dans les matières à l égard desquelles la Région epsiplus_countryreports_tnp 9 24 February 2007

10 exerce les compétences de la Communauté française (1) 28 December 2006 Page 70 MINISTERIE VAN HET WAALSE GEWEST N [2006/204184] 14 DECEMBER Decreet houdende omzetting van Richtlijn 2003/98/EG van het Europees Parlement en de Raad van 17 november 2003 inzake het hergebruik van overheidsinformatie en betreffende de openbaarheid van bestuur voor de aangelegenheden waarin het Gewest de bevoegdheden van de Franse Gemeenschap uitoefent (1) epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

11 Cyprus Cyprus shares no borders with other countries. Status report as of the 20 th February 2007 The planning office of the Cyprus-Government has the responsibility for the Directive. Law 132(I)/2006 transposes the Directive 2003/98/EK. Law 132(I)/2006 was published on the 20 th October 2006 in the Official Gazette number 4092 on pages Ι(ΙΙΙ). The Parliament approved Law 132(I)/2006 on the 12 th October Law 132(I)/2006 contains a delayed transposition clause which states that the law will not be fully implemented until 20 th April 2007 when the Ministry of Finance publishes the full structure of the transposed Directive 2003/98/EK. The Ministry of Finance has established a Technical Committee, chaired by the Minister of Finance. The Technical Committee is co9nsidering and documenting the: - List of documents (date, information & documents) that maybe re-used; - Pricing policy; - Implementation guidelines. Cyprus does not have a data access law such as a Freedom of Information law. The transposition is available only in Greek at the current time. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

12 Czech Republic Czech Republic shares borders with four countries: Austria Germany Slovakia Poland Status report as at the 24 th July 2006 Three key acts form the legislative environment in the area of PSI: 1. Act No. 106/1999 on Free Access to Information This act covers the basic right to free access to information for citizens as well as legal entities and contributes to the base of democratic governance and society. 2. Act No. 127/2005 on Electronic Communications This act transposes the new European Union regulatory framework for electronic communications into Czech law. 3. Act No. 365/2000 on Public Administration Information Systems This Act lays down the rights and obligations of public administration bodies in relation to the establishment, use, operation and development of those information systems. The government and its responsible body Ministry of Informatics of the Czech Rep. ( ) - decided to transpose the Directive 2003/98/EC in a way of amendment of existing act - Act No. 106/1999 on Free Access to Information - instead of preparing and passing a quite new law (this process was expected to be unrealizable in allowed time). After lengthy legislative process the Act was approved on 27 th February 2006 as the Act No. 61/2006 and came into force on 23 March The following quote from an official statement of Ministry of Informatics:...The Act does not affect the basic principles of the law. The aim of it was first and foremost to epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

13 specify and simplify the process of the provision of information, to unify the terminology of the law and incorporate the specifications emerging from the decisions of courts. The Act fully respects the requirements of the European Directive on the repeated use of the information of the public sector first and foremost by the regulation of type licence agreements on the basis of which information will be provided that is the subject of rights to intellectual property and which bodies of public power may dispose of.... The Czech PSI Watch Initiative. The Czech PSI Watch initiative started in July 2005, when the process of transposition of the re-use Directive became more intensive and close cooperation between all stakeholders was necessary. Founders of the Initiative: - Ministry of Informatics: central government authority with sectional domain, co-ordinator, legislative creator, and initiator of system measures. - EPMA, a non profit organization, that was involved in many European projects, among others epsinet and MEPSIR. - ČEKIA: information agency using PSI for added-value services, e-content provider, representative of private business sector acting in information industry. It was the open initiative and other partners were encouraged to joint and support it. Main objectives of the Czech PSI Watch Initiative: 1. Encourage the discussion: - To assist working discussions and cooperation between different groups of stakeholders and users in the area of PSI. 2. Seminars After the overall screening of national providers of PSI, the initiative will organize awareness rising seminars as well as professional workshops, based on national understanding of PSI Directive and also on European experiences. 3. Promote knowledge: Being organized by three kinds of partners (public, business, non-profit), it will gather and promote knowledge from official governmental decisions and relations, from business practice and from international project experiences, as EPSINet and MEPSIR. The Czech PSI Watch Initiative arranged the 1 st seminar with main issue: Exploitation of Public Sector Information - face of affairs in EU, CR and father development. The seminar was held in Prague, 12 September Participants of many organizations attended: Special guest: Louis Ferrao, expert of European Commission Ministry of Informatics (public) EPMA (non-profit) ČEKIA (business) Ministry of Justice (public) Ministry of Finance (public) Ministry of Internal Affairs (public) Czech Statistical Office (public) Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre (public) Coface Intercredit Czechia (business) Czech Association for Geoinformation (non-profit) TOVEK (business) epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

14 Adastra (business) ejustice - Customers of Czech Judiciary (non-profit) Otevřete (Open!) (non-profit) Conclusions from the 1 st Seminar: 1. Meaningfulness in general: - The narrow cooperation between public, profit and non-profit sector is necessary. - Such meetings are very useful, all players have a platform to present their requirements and to listen to counterparts. 2. Legislation: - The amendment of Free Access to Information Act (No 106/1999) was passed to Parliament in May The bill solves in general the main problems with transposition of Re-use Directive, but more details are to discussion. 3. Quality of PSI: - There are a lot of barriers inhibiting the value added services providers to re-use the PSI efficiently. - After informal discussion main issues and demands will be summarized. Status report as of the 7 th November 2006 The transposition of The Directive No. 2003/98/EC on Re-use of Public Sector Information in the Czech Republic is formally finished. The amendment of Free Access to Information (= Freedom of Information Act) (No 106/1999) was passed by Parliament in 3 February 2006 and after the signature of the President came into force in March But there is a lot of questions to ask and to answer especially the licenses for re-use of public sector data, the quality of data published, the access through modern communication means, usage of new format of files, XML for bulk processing, Web services etc. The state administrative body responsible for this issue was The Ministry of Informatics of the Czech Republic and there were some expectations that this Ministry will solve the problems step by step. After the June Parliamentary elections the political powers have changed and former opposition party right-wing Civic Democratic Party as a winner of the election formed new cabinet. But the new government has not did gained confidence in the parliament, because left-wing and right-wing members of parliament are totally balanced 100 votes to 100 votes. The government in spite of its resignation (demission) intends the abolition of Ministry of Informatics and has started some legal steps to this. There is plan for the responsibility of the Re-use of Public sector information to be relocated under the Ministry of Interior. The process has unpredictable time scale and nobody knows whether all the steps will be finished in reasonable time. So, Re-use of Public Sector information exists in our country, but the progress in this area is unknown, as the Government is faced more important issues with higher priority. Some possibility shows anyhow to associate stakeholders re-use entrepreneurs, non-profit organization etc. and with the support of media to press on responsible authorities to tackle the problems and remove obstacles. We can see examples over Europe how to enforce claims of re-use stakeholders the example of Great Britain is very instructive. epsiplus team will discuss own experiences and find some ways to improve the situation in respective countries. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

15 Estonia Estonia shares land borders with two countries: Latvia Russia Status Report as of the 30 November 2006 Re-use of Public Sector Information in Estonia By Liia Hänni, e-governance Academy In Estonia the legal framework for the access to PSI was provided by Public Information Act (PIA) being enforced January After PSI re-use Directive was adopted by the EU in November 2003 an analysis was carried out by the Ministry of Economy and Communication on the need of legal actions to be taken for the transposition of the Directive. The conclusion was reached that no amendments in the existing legislation are needed. The PIA has the purpose to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to access PSI intended for public use based on the principles of a democratic and social rule of law and an open society, and to create opportunities for the public to monitor the performance of public duties. According to the PIA all holders of PSI had to create a web site by March for providing an access to the information online. The websites can be accessed by single portal The law also presents a long list of various categories of information, which should be made available via Web. An important regulation enabling access to the documents of public sector was the requirement to establish the electronic Register of Documents by a sate or local government agency or legal person in public law. In practice the transition to the electronic document management is still going on in parallel with introducing digital signing of documents. A special legal instrument for getting access to PSI was defined by the PIA request for information. This is an oral ore written claim to get an information documented in a public agency. A request for information shall be complied with promptly, but not later than within five working days. Access to information shall be granted without charge unless law prescribes payment for the direct expenses relating to the release of the information. This regulation is also applicable for the state and local government databases unless special law provides different legal rules. Databases, which contain epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

16 information, which is important for the public, shall be accessible through the public data communication network. The Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate has been given the task to exercise state supervision over holders of information during compliance with requests for information and the disclosure of information. An important court ruling was brought in verdict on June this year to clarify the competences of the Data Protection Inspectorate. According to that the Inspectorate is obliged to exercise oversight and resolve disputes not only on access to the information but also on accessibility of information. It means that the registers of documents need to be kept in user-friendly manner. Some weeks ago, on November the Government submitted an extensive draft law amending the PIA to the Riigikogu (Parliament of Estonia). The purpose of the bill is to improve the overall functioning of a free flow of public information. Most probably, the parliamentary debate on amendments to PIA will also help to raise awareness about the PSI re-use Directive. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

17 Finland Finland shares land borders with three countries: Norway Russia Sweden Status report as of the 7 th August 2006 The Government of Finland portal to public sector bodies may be found at Status report as of the 18 th January 2007 In preparations for the epsiplus Finnish National meeting and the epsiplus Pricing and charging meeting scheduled for 19 and 20 April 2007 in Helsinki a number of PSI stakeholders met informally. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

18 The following bodies were represented at the meeting. Senior Adviser, Land Management, The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities Managing Director, Foreca Consulting Ltd. Chief Executive Officer, Association of Independent Producers in Finland. Head of Knowledge Management, National Board of Antiquities. University of Art and Design Helsinki, School of Art and Media Pori, Executive Manager, National Association for Developing the Digital Content Industry in Finland. Commercial Counsellor, Ministry of Trade and Industry. Senior Officer, Ministry of Trade and Industry. epsiplus National partner Mr P Paloheimo The meeting considered amongst other items: The forth-coming epsiplus Pricing and Charges meeting. The existing content of the epsiplus web site Europe s one-stop shop to PSI. How to boost the Finnish content on the epsiplus web site Forming an official PSI Group Finland. The implementation of the PSI Directive in Finland. (Refer to note below) Differences between Finland and other Member States with respect to the implementation of the PSI Directive and encouraging re-use of public sector information. A number of actions were agreed at the meeting but the key action was the agreement to submit a formal proposal to the Director General of the Ministry of Trade and Industry for the establishment of a PSI group for Finland. Finland has transposed the PSI Directive through existing legislation that includes: Självstyrelselag för Åland, Laki viranomaisten toiminnan julkisuudesta, ; (EN translation) Act on the Openness of Government Activities, nr. 621, Valtion maksuperustelaki, epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

19 France France shares borders with six countries: Belgium Germany Italy Luxembourg Spain Switzerland Status report as of the 12 th September 2006 Report provided by GFII An important domain, an ancient debate Since the 1990s, the French Administration and the Information industry are engaged in a debate about the re-use of public sector information. This is a critical topic, because of the importance of public bodies in the production and dissemination of information. Apart from education and science, there has been two different situations in the public services: the general administrative units were not very concerned by information dissemination, whilst specialised entities have been created for administrative publishing and have developed commercial activities this is the case in industrial property, statistics, geography, legal publications, business epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

20 information, administrative documents etc. Local authorities have not been much concerned until recently. Harsh oppositions arose in the 90s between private information industry and public entities commercialising databases and documents. This led to many special reports, requested by the Government, and to real progress: interested parties did discuss, exclusive or opaque licenses tended to be replaced by clear and non exclusive ones. During that period, the GFII, "Groupement français de l'industrie de l'information" appeared as the only organisation within which all stakeholders in the professional information sector could work together: main interested public bodies and businesses did participate, and a special working group was created in 1997, to discuss PSI policies with government representatives. From 2000, a wider group was formed with other interested organisations Legal and administrative environment Development of PSI re-use and legal organisation should be replaced in a wider framework in the French administration. The first aspect is the development, since 1998, of an official strategy for information society and for e-administration. Corresponding policies and actions are now under the control of the Ministry of Finance: "Direction générale de la modernisation de l'etat". Obviously, this policy has a big impact on PSI production and re-use. Another important aspect is the protection of privacy, which is guaranteed by the Law "Informatique et liberté" since An independent administrative body is in charge, under the control of the Parliament: the "Commission nationale de l'informatique et des Libertés" (CNIL). The third aspect to be considered is the relation between citizens and the administration. The law n of July the 17th 1978, on the improvement of the relation between the administration and the people, guaranteed "citizen access to public documents", on request, and not for commercial use. This is under the control of the "Commission for Access to Administrative Documents" (CADA), attached to the Prime Minister's Office. This was the situation in France before the transposition of the EU Directive. The transposition The transposition of the EU Directive has been done in two steps. an "Ordonance of June 6th 2005 on free access to administrative documents and re-use of public information", which modified the l1978 Law. a decree no of December the 30th 2005, regarding the freedom of access to administrative documents and the re-use of public information Important progresses have been made, conforming to the Directive. The law enforces principles of equal conditions for re-use, of public non-exclusive licenses, of maximum charges and not proportional royalties. The regulating authority is the CADA (see above), whose domain has been extended. The new CADA is an authority of mediation between administration and re-users ; on request, it will give advice to companies that cannot obtain the information. This authority will not have the power to carry out investigations in order to check if the applicable charges are in line with the charging principles. But the CADA has sanction powers against private companies, which do not respect the conditions of reuse. The 11 members of the new CADA are high ranking civil servants: a deputy and a senator, an elected official of a local authority, a Law professor, experts in archiving, privacy and data protection and competition and a "qualified person in public information dissemination" (M Jean-Noël Tronc, director of strategy and branding of Orange France). In order to promote the dissemination of information and to facilitate the relations between public bodies and businesses or citizens, a data correspondent has to be appointed in every Ministry and public organisations (including local authorities). epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

21 Ongoing discussions The public data dissemination remains somehow a polemic theme in France at the moment. Publication of the ordonance and of the decree has not solved all the problems. The transposition of the Directive appears to many as restrictive and sometimes in contradiction with the objective. Some of these difficulties were underlined during the seminar organised by the GFII and other organisations on January Until now, the CADA has only been concerned by citizen access and not by economic development and information industry. The law itself, which deals with both aspects, might however maintain some confusion, although in the different articles, the distinction is made between access and re-use. Information still needs to be more precise as it is defined in the texts as information that is included in an administrative document: a definition which could exclude databases. Moreover, when the public sector body has not answered to a demand after one month, it should be considered as a negative decision. There is no obligation for the public sector bodies to communicate the grounds of the refusal to the applicant. Any crisis could lead to an action in national court, which is a long and expensive process. The CADA can apply sanctions to a private party but not to the public body. More specifications are also needed about charging. The law excludes proportional royalties and maintains intellectual property, as in the Directive, but the consequences on re-use and charging remain to be defined. Currently, companies using data produced by the local authorities denounce the very various charges. Some difficulties could also arise because of the privacy protection, as only the administration can perform anonymisation when necessary; this seems to be a real obstacle to some industry specialists, in particular because a different organisation is in charge (CNIL). However, coordination between the two Commissions is under way. Still, the most important difficulty remains the changing of public service culture. Practical developments The appointment of PSI responsible in the ministries has not yet started. Only a few local authorities have already informed about such appointments. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

22 Germany Germany shares borders with nine countries: Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark France Luxembourg Netherlands Poland Switzerland epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

23 Status Report as of 20 th December 2006 The German transposition of the PSI Directive 2003/98/EG has been completed and came into force on the 19 th December Informationsweiterverwendungsgesetz, (IWG) Law number BGBl. I, S Press Releases: Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology The Federal Government Industrie/Informationsweiterverwendung/Informationsweiterverwendung-knoten.html nnn=true Update 31 st January 2007 by Gerhard Wagner 1) Satellite imagery The German government issued on 26 Jan a paper, which regulates in detail the worldwide use and reuse of satellite data relating to the German territory (collected by private or public satellites). The subject will be strictly enforced by the law in order not to place the security of Germany at risk. - any private company running a satellite system in Germany has to be registered in advance - any re-use of satellite data has to be notified and allowed by the Government - each private holder of satellite data has to done internally a sensitive test of the data - all requests of users and re-users have to documented in detail and stored so that the public administration might have insight for future investigations. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

24 Gibraltar Gibraltar completed the transposition of the EU PSI Directive in December 2005 via Ordnance , which came into force on the 8th December The Ordnance can be downloaded from the Gibraltar Government Laws portal at the following URL: epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

25 Greece Greece shares borders with four countries: Albania Bulgaria Macedonia Turkey The PSI directive has already been implemented in Greece since under the law no 3448/2006 referred to "the reuse of PSI" and connected to our "access of public document's status" (art. 5 of L.2690/99). An English translation of law 3448/2006 is available on the Citizen Services Centres portal that is maintained by the Ministry of Interior unit General Secretary of Public Administration and E-gov whom also have responsibility for the implementation of law 3448/2006 within Greece. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

26 Hungary Hungary shares land borders with seven countries: Austria Croatia Romania Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Ukraine In the Republic of Hungary, every individual is granted the right to free expression, as well as to access and disseminate data of public interest (Constitution of Hungary 61 (1.) In Hungary is unique in the degree to which the protection of personal data within its borders is linked with the constitutional values of freedom of information: Act LXIII of 1992 on the Protection of Personal Data and Public Access to Data of Public Interest. In accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Hungary, Parliament hereby passes the following Act on the fundamental rules governing the protection of personal data and the implementation of the right of access to data of public interest: Purpose of the Act (1) The purpose of this Act is to guarantee the right of everyone to exercise control over his or her personal data and to have access to data of public interest, except as otherwise provided by a rule of law under this Act. (2) No derogation shall be allowed from the provisions of this Act, unless such derogation is expressly provided for in this Act. (3) Exceptions under this Act shall be made only for specific types of data and specific data controllers together. Further information about the act: Please refer to Annex A of this document for the document attached to the above report. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

27 Ireland Ireland shares land borders with one country: Northern Ireland (UK) Update on PSI Re-use in Ireland as at 18 th July Directive 2003/98/EC of European Parliament on the re-use of public sector information was transposed into Irish law on the 1st July The directive was implemented into Irish law by means of secondary legislation statutory instrument (Ref: SI 279 of 2005). A Public Sector Information Portal has been set up by the Department of Finance who were responsible for implementing the legislation ( which contains a brief overview of legislation in addition to: (a) Listing of Government Departments, Local authorities, statutory bodies and other institutions covered by PSI regulations (b) Copy of Statutory Instrument 279 of 2005 implementing legislation (c) Circular 32/05 issued by the Department of Finance to each institution coming under FOI Re-Use legislation with overview details of its purpose and how they should regard its implementation (d) A standard license, which could be used by public bodies for PSI re-use As part of the above process each institution was to immediately create a webpage on their existing website regarding PSI implementation within their institution - this page would be linked to from the PSI portal and would contain information such as officer responsible for PSI within the institution, policy regarding PSI, listing of data available for re-use, applicable prices and license details etc. At this point institution implementation is very much at an early stage and in most cases the PSI webpages on each public sector site, PSI links from portal site and general PSI information are not updated. Many of the public sector bodies appear to be at the stage of drawing up epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

28 details of their data assets with a view to updating above web links. Very little information on PSI asset registers has appeared at this point but greater progress is expected in the months ahead. In general many public sector bodies (includes most local government bodies) do not appear to be familiar with the legislation and would not appear to be actively pursuing a progressive implementation of it at this stage. A clear distinction needs to be drawn between PSI Re-use and FOI within each public sector body. At this point there is more focus in Ireland on Freedom of Information. Ireland implemented a quite progressive FOI Act in 1997 (FOI Act Number 13 of 1997) which at the time was probably quite a bit ahead of the rest of Europe in this area (more akin to New Zealand, Canada) and the Government also established an Information Commissioner whose has a completely independent role (a kind of information ombudsman) in the whole area of access to Government information within the FOI legislation as drawn up. See: Now FOI may have little to do with PSI Re-use but the implementation & operation of the FOI has not been without its problems and the fear is that it may have created a negative approach towards the release of information in general amongst many public bodies which may prove an obstacle for a progressive PSI Re-use policy. In general the appointed FOI officers in public sector institutions are also responsible for PSI Re-use implementation. A range of non-disclosure clauses now applies to certain FOI information requests and FOI enquirers now have to pay for each FOI request. The Information Commissioner is endeavoring to remove unnecessary restrictions and difficulties in accessing FOI information and to increase the number of institutions to which FOI applies - for example the Gardai (Irish police force) still do not come under FOI legislation. Some of the nondisclosure clauses may be acceptable in the case of particularly sensitive information but others would appear to have less merit. The original FOI act was primarily intended for the public but is extensively used by the media who in the view of some public sector bodies frequently use it for writing articles, which reflect badly on the institution itself or its members. In reality the FOI act has been the catalyst for some good investigative journalism if we exclude the tabloid press "sensational story" approach. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

29 Latvia Latvia shares land borders with four countries: Belarus Estonia Lithuania Russia Public Sector Information Country Report of Latvia. 14 th February I Freedom of Information Law amended on 22 December 2005, with effect as of 1 February Having regard to the Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the reuse of public sector information of 17 November 2003 (hereinafter Directive), the Freedom of Information Law has been amended on 22 December 2005, with effect as of 1 February Aligned with the provisions of Article 11 of the 2003/98/EC Directive, the amended version of the Freedom of Information Law ( ) imposes a general ban on the issue of exclusive arrangements. Nevertheless it foreseen also cases, where such exclusive rights are required in order to provide information society services in public interest. The procedure for assigning exclusive rights and making public the information regarding such assignment shall be defined by the Cabinet of Ministers as set out in part two of Article 18 of the Freedom of Information Law. II Freedom of Information Law amended on 5 October 2006 On 5 October 2006, the Freedom of Information Law was amended, specifying in more detail some cases of information re-use. The law has been amended, by incorporating a new Article, which sets out requirements as to layout of the application for re-use of information. The application for re-use of information of the relevant institution is more or less identical to the standard application for information, in terms of both its format and content. The said is now eliminated by law, stating that the applications for handover of information at the disposal of the relevant body for re-use purposes shall be drawn up in accordance with the requirements applicable to applications for the relevant type of information: epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

30 Section Request for Information Re-use (1) An application for the re-use of existing information at the disposal of an institution shall be drawn up in writing in accordance with documentation requirements specified for the relevant information group. (2) In addition in the application shall be indicated that the information is requested for the purpose of re-use, and the goods or services for the formation of which the requested information is necessary. [5 October 2006] In order to promote re-use of public sector information by private persons, contributing also to the development of high quality products, entry of the same in the market (both at local and EU levels) and sustainable growth of the country, the law also provides for cooperation of the public bodies and applicants for information, where the said agree on terms for handover of the relevant information for re-use purposes: Section 10. Duty to Provide Information (5) An institution may agree with an applicant for information regarding permanent co-operation in transfer of the information at its disposal for reuse. III Draft Cabinet of Ministers Regulation Procedures by which exclusive rights are granted and information regarding the granting of such rights shall be published Based on the delegation of authorities referred to in part two of Article 18 of the Freedom of Information Law, the Secretariat of Special Assignments Minister for Electronic Government Affairs has drawn up draft Cabinet of Ministers Regulation Procedures by which exclusive rights are granted and information regarding the granting of such rights shall be published. The draft regulation lists the bodies and persons entitled to exercise public administration and the relevant tasks, rights and obligations of the same in calling for issue of exclusive rights. The draft regulation also define a procedure for making public the information regarding assignment of such exclusive rights, specifying parts of exclusive agreements which are mandatory. In addition to this, the document sets out the procedure for review as to justification of assigning such exclusive rights. The decision regarding the assignment of exclusive rights allowing for re-use of information shall be adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers. As defined by the draft regulation, the Competition Council and State Data Inspectorate shall express their opinion prior to submission of the draft agreement by which the exclusive rights are assigned for approval by the Cabinet of Ministers. The draft regulation has been submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers for review, and still is under discussion mainly due to general provision allowing to grant exclusive rights for information re-use by decision of the Cabinet of Ministers. IV Tariff principles Incorporated in the Freedom of Information Law are also the tariff principles set forth by the Directive part two of Article 13 of the Freedom of Information Law states that : (2) Payment for the provision of information may not exceed the expenses of the searching for, additional processing and copying of documents or information. The payment may not include any other expenses, which have been incurred in respect of resolving legal or political issues, which are associated with the provision of answers to the request for information. The Freedom of Information Law provides for a possibility, where the applicant can apply for exemption from paying the service fee. epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007

31 Delegated by the Law the Freedom of Information 1 : the Cabinet of Ministers shall draw up a regulation, setting forth the procedure for meeting requests for information, defining also types of pay services and volumes of the same. The procedures by which payment is performed for the provision of information has been adopted by Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia on 21 November 2006 (Regulations No 940). The link for Regulation 940: Notes: Information Freedom Act of Latvia (and other information about epsiplus, PSI and national situation of Latvia linked with implementation of Re-use Directive) is available on Secretariat of Special Assignments Minister for Electronic Government Affairs website. The link for Information Freedom Act: The link for Information Freedom Act of Latvia in English: Below is the Cabinet of Ministers Regulation Procedure for issue of exclusive rights and making public information regarding issue of such rights. Please note that it is draft regulation submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers for approval as we hope in November The draft law appears at Annex B of this document. 1 Section 13. Payment for the Provision of Information (4) The Cabinet shall determine the procedures by which payment is performed for the provision of information, as well as the paid services and the amounts thereof. (5) Commercial companies founded by public persons for the re-use of information in their commercial activities shall have applied the same payment and provision procedures as for other applicants for information. [22 December 2005]) epsiplus_countryreports_tnp February 2007