Jusletter IT

The Lisbon Strategy «for growth and jobs»¹ was launched in the year 2000 by the European Council in Lisbon and has represented the main strategic framework development for the E.U. in the past decade. The recent Strategy Europe 2020² follows the Lisbon Strategy. It’s a 10-year policy proposed by the European Commission on 3^rd March 2010. As is written in the Explanatory Memorandum of the Communication³, Europe «need a strategy to come out stronger from the crisis and turn the EU into a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy delivering high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion.» José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, in the web site of the Europe 2020 initiative maintains that: «Europe 2020 is the EU’s growth strategy for the coming decade. In a changing world, we want the EU to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. These three mutually reinforcing priorities should help the EU and the Member States deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. Concretely, the Union has set five ambitious objectives – on employment, innovation, education, social inclusion and climate/energy – to be reached by 2020». Furthermore Europe 2020 sets out a vision of Europes social market economy for the 21^st century.

The main three areas of priorities (smart, sustainable and inclusive economy) are addressed by seven flagship initiative that can be summarize as follow:

• Smart growth: developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation:
• Digital agenda for Europe;
• Innovation Union;
• Youth on the move;
• Sustainable growth: promoting a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy;
• Resource efficient Europe;
• An industrial policy for the globalisation era;
• Inclusive growth: fostering a high-employment economy delivering social and territorial cohesion:
• An agenda for new skills and job;
• European platform against poverty.

The Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE)⁴ is the first of the above mentioned flagship initiatives. The central objects of the Digital Agenda as indicated on the introduction «is to deliver sustainable economic and social benefits from a digital single market based on fast and ultra fast Internet and interoperable applications». The Commission has identified the most significant obstacles that on their own or in combination seriously undermine efforts to exploit ICT, making clear the need for a comprehensive and united policy response at the European level. They show that Europe is lagging behind its industrial partners. The obstacles are indicated in the introduction of DAE⁵ can be recapitulated in this following seven areas:

1. fragmented digital markets;
2. lack of interoperability;
3. rising cybercrime and risk of low trust in networks;
4. lack of investment in networks;
5. insufficient research and innovation efforts;
6. lack of digital literacy and skills;
7. missed opportunities in addressing societal challenges.

The Digital Agenda frames its key actions around the need to systematically tackle these seven problem areas, which as a horizontal initiative spans, the three growth dimensions set out in Europe 2020. As to the introduction of the Communication: «The Commission will remain vigilant for the emergence of additional obstacles and will react accordingly». In order to face and overtake the above mentioned obstacles and to reboot Europe’s economy and help Europe’s citizens and businesses to get the most out of digital technologies, the DAE contains 101 actions, grouped around seven priority areas of action, the seven pillar of DAE:

1. creating a digital Single Market;
2. greater interoperability;
3. boosting internet trust and security;
4. much faster internet access;
5. more investment in research and development;
6. enhancing digital literacy skills and inclusion, and
7. applying information and communications technologies to address challenges facing society like climate change and the ageing population.

The Digital Agenda will require a sustained level of commitment at both EU and Member State levels (including at regional level). It cannot succeed without a major contribution by other stakeholders, including young «digital natives» who have much to teach us. This Agenda is a snapshot of actual and foreseeable problems and opportunities, and will evolve in the light of experience and of the rapid changes in technology and society. The above listed problematic areas are in detail developed in the individual sections of the Communication, demonstrating the pressing need for the actions identified as a set of positive agendas to boost Europe’s social and economic performance. This paper is primarily concentrated on First Pillar of DAE, «creating a digital Single Market», and focuses on the explanation of the Action 3 dealing with Open Data and the Reuse of Public Sector Information.

As described on the website of the Digital Agenda Public Authorities produce large amounts of data that could become the raw material for new, innovative cross-border applications and services⁶. There are several examples of products and services based on the re-use of Public Sector Information: GPS, weather forecasts, financial and insurance services, digital maps, meteorological maps, traffic maps and other data. Public Sector Information, hereinafter PSI, is the single largest source of information in Europe.

On 12^th of December 2011, the European Commission, in order to achieve the aims as indicted in the DAE and to unlock the public data potential across Europe, has launched an «Open Data Strategy for Europe» enacting the so called «Open Data Package». The Open Data Strategy consists of 3 elements:

1. A Communication on Open Data where the Commission presents its vision and policy on data re-use, including legislative, deployment and funding elements;
2. A proposal to revise the 2003 Directive on re-use of public sector information (Directive 2003/98/EC)⁷;
3. A revision of the Decision governing re-use of Commission’s own information (Decision 2006/291/EC, Euratom of 7^th April 2006)⁸.

In addition, the Communication supports the Europe-wide open data portals, making public data easily useable. The European Commission on 24^th of December 2012 have launched the beta version of its new open data portal⁹. Already 5907 datasets are published on the website, 5724 dataset are from Eurostat.

As above referred PSI is the single largest source of information in Europe. The Digital Agenda for Europe and the Open Data Package put in evidence a careful and detailed survey in order to demonstrate the economical opportunities arising from the exploitation of Public Data.

The European Commission believes that «overall economic gains from opening up this resource could amount to € 40 billion a year in the EU. Opening up public data will also foster the participation of citizens in political and social life and contribute to policy areas such as the environment».¹⁰

This information has a significant — currently untapped — potential for re-use in new products and services and for efficiency gains in administrations.

Hal Varian, Professor of Information Sciences, Business, and Economics at the University of California at Berkeley and Chief Economist Google maintains that «the ability to take data — to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it —that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school kids, for high school kids, for college kids. Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it.»¹¹

A recent study carried on by Graham Vickery¹² and commissioned by the European Commission estimates the total public sector information related market across the EU in year 2008 at Euro 28 billion and in 2010 at Euro 32 billion.

The study indicates that the overall economic gains from further opening up Public Sector Information by allowing easy access are at around Euro 40 billion a year for the EU 27. The aggregate direct and indirect economic impacts from PSI applications and use across the whole EU 27 economy would be in the order of Euro 140 billion annually. As to Vickery study the average growth rate in PSI-related markets is 7%. The total direct and indirect economic impact of PSI reuse is from 70 up to 140 billion of Euro. Finally the welfare gains from to marginal cost pricing of the PSI will be 40 billion Euros.

Heli Koski¹³ from the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy has recently carried on a study about marginal cost pricing of PSI¹⁴ assessing the performance of 14,000 firms in the architectural, engineering and related technical consultancy sectors, located in 15 different countries. The study analyses the effect of maximum marginal cost pricing for geographical PSI on the firms’ growth performance during the years 2000–2007. The conclusions that Koski has reached are strongly supporting free data re-use.

Other important legal and economical aspects concerning the Open Data are presented on the website of LAPSI – Legal Aspects of Public Sector Information¹⁵ and EVPSI – Extracting Value from Public Sector Information ¹⁶.

The Communication presented by the EU defines open data as an engine for innovation, growth and transparent governance¹⁷. The previous considerations on the potential economical value of the open data have led the Commission to revise and strengthen its public data strategy by targeting the legal framework for re-use and available support tools. The Communication presents a package of measures to overcome existing barriers and fragmentation across the EU, as part of the Digital Agenda for Europe. It consists of three strands that reinforce each other.

Strand 1: Adapting the legal framework for data re-use:

• a proposal for a revised Directive on the re-use of public sector information and a revised Commission Decision on the re-use of its own information are adopted together with this Communication (December 2011);
• work to expand the regime to other European Institutions and Agencies, 2012;
• open data to be taken up in sector-based legislative and policy initiatives.

Strand 2: Mobilising financing instruments in support of open data, and deployment actions such as the creation of European data-portals.

• The Commission will continue to support R&D in data-handling technologies, e.g. data mining, analytics or visualisation. In the period 2011–2013 the Commission will spend around € 100 million on R&D in these fields. Information management is also one of the priority areas envisaged for ICT in Horizon 2020¹⁸;
• the Commission will support technology innovation and uptake through pilot actions, testing and showcasing innovative applications such as geographical information systems and location-based services (GIS) and creative content applications in education, culture or fashion;
• In order to facilitate the development of information products and services combining data from across the European Union, the Commission will work together with Member States, public sector bodies and regional aggregators to establish two pan-European data portals. The Portal giving access to Commission data and data from other EU institutions and agencies, spring 2012; launch of a pan-European data portal, giving access to datasets from across the EU, spring 2013, following preparatory work with Member States from 2011.
• The Commission supports in FP7¹⁹, and envisages continued support in Horizon 2020 for the development of a persistent and robust service infrastructure for scientific data in Europe that responds to the needs of the data-intensive science and research of 2020. It will allow access to and interaction with a continuum of information, from raw observational and experimental data to publications in all areas of science. The Commission will work together with our international partners to develop standards for global data access and interoperability.

Strand 3: Continue facilitating coordination and experience sharing across the Member States, in particular through:

• the PSI group²⁰, a Member States’ expert group for the exchange of good practices and initiatives supporting public-sector information re-use;
• the Public Sector Information platform²¹. This web portal provides news on European developments, good practices, examples of new products and services, and legal cases concerning PSI re-use;
• the LAPSI²² network, which analyses legal issues related to public sector information and fosters debate among researchers and stakeholders. It will produce a set of guidelines for access and re-use policies and practices.

The above listed objectives of the Commission will be fulfilled as to the Targets indicated in every point. As to the conclusion of the Communication the Targets will be achieved with the collaboration and the contribution of Member States.

The work with the Member States should lead to:

• the formulation and implementation of open public data policies in all Member States by early 2013;
• the rapid adoption, transposition and implementation of the revised Directive on the re-use of public sector information. This will create the conditions for economic activity based on open data, and will stimulate cross-border applications;
• 1/3 of all available structured government data in the Member States searchable through the pan-European data-portal by 2015.

Finally the Commission invites the «European Parliament and the Council, within their respective responsibilities, to create the right framework conditions for the re-use of public sector information across the European Union, and to support the projects and infrastructures that can turn Europe’s public data into a motor for innovation, growth and transparency».

The decision from the Commission to revise the 2003 Directive on re-use of Public Sector Information is taken under the Action 3, «Open up public data resources for re-use», of the European Digital Agenda that calls for the review of the Directive on re-use of PSI, notably its scope and principles on charging for access and use²³. The proposal for a revision of the Directive was adopted on 12^th December 2011 enacting the above explained Open Data Package. In 2003, the EU adopted the Directive on the re-use of public sector information (PSI Directive)²⁴. It has introduced a common legislative framework regulating how public sector bodies should make their information available for re-use in order to remove barriers such as discriminatory practices, monopoly markets and a lack of transparency.

The PSI Directive is into force in the EU and it has been full implemented by Members States since 2008.

According to Art. 1, «Subject matter and scope», the Directive on the re-use of public sector information into force provides a common legislative framework for the European public sector information market: «this Directive establishes a minimum set of rules governing the re-use and the practical means of facilitating reuse of existing documents held by public sector bodies of the Member States».

The Directive 2003/98/EC focuses on the economic aspects of information rather than the access of citizens to information.

It encourages the Member States to make as much information available for re-use as possible. It addresses material held by public sector bodies in the Member States, at national, regional and local levels.

The PSI Directive covers the following issues about PSI:

• Availability;
• Charging;
• Transparency;
• Non-discrimination;
• No exclusive arrangements;
• Licensing;
• Practical tools to facilitate the discovery and re-use of public documents.

The Explanatory Memorandum²⁵ of the Commission proposal analyses the new general contest that as lead to revision of the Directive 2003/98/EC.

The economic general context has shown and recognized the importance of opening data resources, including public data.

As to the Memorandum the general objectives of the EC proposal are:

• «contribute to economic growth and job creation by unlocking the economic potential of government-owned data through improved conditions for the exploitation of PSI»;
• strengthen positive effect on the transparency, efficiency and accountability of governments and contribute to citizen empowerment;
• catalyse a change of culture in the public sector, creating a favourable environment for value-added activities resulting from the re-use of public information resources;
• provide the market with an optimal legal framework to stimulate the digital content market for PSI-based products and services, including its crossborder dimension;
• prevent distortions of competition on the Union market for the reuse of PSI and ensure specific conditions at different stages of the chain of commercial and non commercial exploitation of PSI so that access is improved and re-use facilitated;
• made data unlocked, discoverable and effectively available for re-use;
• assure that financial and non-financial transaction costs stays as low as possible;
• ensure that re-users have access to an efficient and effective redress mechanism to be able to enforce their rights;
• reinforce the original Directive in order to overcome the remaining barriers, e.g. lack of information about what data are actually available, restrictive or unclear rules governing access and re-use conditions, discouraging, unclear and inconsistent pricing where the re-use of information is chargeable, and the overall excessive complexity of the process for obtaining permission to re-use PSI, in particular for SMEs;
• eliminate dominant position held by re-users or «hybrid» public bodies in order to avoid discriminatory treatment or unjustified exclusive agreements for the exploitation of PSI;
• remove regulatory and practical borders to re-use across the Union affecting the development of the internal market for PSI re-use;
• ensure the same types of data are available on similar, if not the same, terms and conditions irrespective of their national origin;
• innovate in products based directly on PSI and in complementary products and increase, the combining of different public and private information to produce new goods.

The following section provides an analysis by articles of the principal proposed amendments of the PSI Directive from the European Commission.

The amendment of Article 3 of the PSI Directive specifically introduce the new general rule that requires Member States to ensure that «existing documents» held by public sector bodies of the Member States shall be «reusable for commercial and non-commercial purposes», unless covered by the exceptions provided for in the Directive. As to whereas n. 6 of the Amending proposal the Directive 2003/98/EC does not contain an obligation to allow re-use of documents. The decision whether or not to authorise re-use remains with the Member Sates or the public sector body concerned. At the same time, the Directive builds on national rules on access to documents. Whereas n. 7 of the amending proposal established that «Directive 2003/98/EC should therefore lay down a clear obligation for Member States to make all generally available documents re-usable». The proposed amendment of Article 3 includes therefore under the Directive for the first time libraries, museums and archives. According to whereas n. 10 the scope of application of the Directive is extended to libraries (including university libraries), museums and archives. The Directive does not apply to other cultural institutions, such as operas, ballets or theatres, including the archives that are part of these institutions.

Art. 3, version into force:

General principle«Member States shall ensure that, where the re-use of documents held by public sector bodies is allowed, these documents shall be re-usable for commercial or non-commercial purposes in accordance with the conditions set out in Chapters III and IV.Where possible, documents shall be made available through electronic mean».

Art. 3 as to amending proposal will be replaced as follows:

General principleSubject to paragraph (2) Member States shall ensure that documents referred to in Article 1 shall be re-usable for commercial or non-commercial purposes in accordance with the conditions set out in Chapters III and IV. (2) For documents for which libraries (including university libraries), museums and archives have intellectual property rights, Member States shall ensure that, where the re-use of documents is allowed, these documents shall be re-usable for commercial or non-commercial purposes in accordance with the conditions set out in Chapters III and IV.

The Commission update the terminology of previous directive, which referred to «electronic means», using the expression «machine-readable format» taking therefore into account the advantage of contemporary semantic web technologies (RDF/OWL, Linked data).

As explained in the whereas n. 11 «To facilitate re-use, public sector bodies should make documents available through machine readable formats and together with their metadata where possible and appropriate, in a format that ensures interoperability, e.g. by processing them in a way consistent with the principles governing the compatibility and usability requirements for spatial information under Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE)». According to the EC proposal in Article 2 (Definitions) the following paragraph is added:

«6. machine-readable means that digital documents are sufficiently structured for software applications to identify reliably individual statements of fact and their internal structure».

Therefore in paragraph 1 of Article 5 (available formats) the words «through electronic means» are replaced by «in machine-readable format and together with their metadata». The amendments of the EC proposal ensure that PSI is delivered in formats that not promote monopolies or impede interoperability and cross-European collaboration.

The use of Open Standards is the way promoted by the EC proposal.

As to whereas n. 13 «In relation to any re-use that is made of the document, public sector bodies may, where practicable, impose conditions on the re-user, such as acknowledgment of source. Any licences for the re-use of public sector information should in any case place as few restrictions on re-use as possible. Open licences available online, which grant wider re-use rights without technological, financial or geographical limitations and relying on open data formats, may also play an important role in this respect. Therefore, Member States should encourage the use of open government licences».

Paragraph 1 of Art. 8, Licences, will be replaced by the following:

«Public sector bodies may allow re-use without conditions or may impose conditions, such as indication of source, where appropriate through a licence.These conditions shall not unnecessarily restrict possibilities for re-use and shall not be used to restrict competition.»

The version into force of Paragraph 1, Art. 8, is :

«Public sector bodies may allow re-use without conditions or may impose conditions, such as indication of source, where appropriate through a licence.These conditions shall not unnecessarily restrict possibilities for re-use and shall not be used to restrict competition».

Finally Article 9 is replaced by the following:

«Member States shall ensure that practical arrangements facilitating the crosslingual search for documents available for re-use are in place, such as asset lists of main documents with relevant metadata, accessible preferably online and in machine-readable format, and portal sites that are linked to decentralised asset lists».

The new version of Art. 6, «Principle governing charging», proposes considerable amendments to the charging policy of the Member States establishing that public bodies shall in principle not be allowed to charge more than marginal costs incurred for the reproduction and the dissemination of the public sector document.

Only in exceptional cases higher charges can be made. Accordingly whereas n. 12 of the EC proposal states: «The necessity of not hindering the normal running of public sector bodies covering a substantial part of the operating cost relating to the performance of their public task from the exploitation of their intellectual property rights should notably be taken into consideration. The burden of proving that charges are cost-oriented and comply with relevant limits should lie with the public sector body charging for the re-use of documents».

Amendments to Article 6, (Principles governing charging)

(1) The following paragraphs are inserted at the beginning of the Article:«1. Where charges are made for the re-use of documents, the total amount charged by public sector bodies shall be limited to the marginal costs incurred for their reproduction and dissemination».«2. In exceptional cases, in particular where public sector bodies generate a substantial part of their operating costs relating to the performance of their public service tasks from the exploitation of their intellectual property rights, public sector bodies may be allowed to charge for the re-use of documents over and above the marginal costs, according to objective, transparent and verifiable criteria, provided this is in the public interest and subject to the approval of the independent authority referred to in Article 4(4), and without prejudice to paragraphs 3 and 4 of this Article».«3. Notwithstanding paragraphs 1 and 2, libraries (including university libraries), museums and archives may charge over and above the marginal costs for the re-use of documents they hold.»(2) The existing text of Article 6 becomes paragraph 4.(3) A new paragraph 5 is added:«The burden of proving that charges comply with this Article shall lie with the public sector body charging for re-use.»

The present version Art. 6, Principles governing charging, reads:

Principles governing charging«Where charges are made, the total income from supplying and allowing re-use of documents shall not exceed the cost of collection, production, reproduction and dissemination, together with a reasonable return on investment. Charges should be cost oriented over the appropriate accounting period and calculated in line with the accounting principles applicable to the public sector bodies involved».

Data Protection and the Re-use of Public Sector Information in the European Union is a growing concern after the Commission, on 12 December 2011, has adopted the above explained Open Data Package.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has issued an opinion that calls for data protection safeguards before public sector information containing personal data can be re-used²⁶. The opinion provides a detailed analysis covering many important aspects ranging from licensing, anonymization and transfer of data outside of the EU. Peter Hustinx, the EDPS, says: «The re-use of PSI containing personal data may bring significant benefits, but also entails great risks to the protection of personal data, due to the wide variety of data held by public sector bodies. The Commission proposal should therefore more clearly define in what situations and subject to what safeguards information containing personal data may be required to be made available for re-use.»²⁷

Open Data policies and Data Protection laws have a similar objective: to create a fair environment for the circulation and the processing of data, but from PSI perspective no personal data should enter in the open government data definition and this create some weakness in the coordination among the two topics.

Broad PSI Re-use and Purpose-Bound Personal Data Re-Use: How to Strike the Balance?

The EDPS calls for a proactive approach. As to the opinion of EDPS «it is crucial that public sector bodies take a proactive approach when making personal data available for reuse. A proactive approach would make it possible to make the data publicly available with the explicit purpose of reuse, subject to specific conditions and safeguards in compliance with data protection rules».

To ensure data protection compliance EDPS recommends that the Commission develop further guidance on the data protection aspects of PSI re-use taking into account primarily anonymization and licensing. The EDPS suggest the implementation of a template for adequate data protection clauses in licenses.

In particular concluding his opinion EDPS recommends that the EC Proposal of amending PSI Directive should:

• establish more clearly the scope of applicability of the PSI Directive to personal data;
• require that an assessment be carried out by the public sector body concerned before any PSI containing personal data may be made available for reuse;
• where appropriate, require that data be fully or partially anonymized and license conditions specifically prohibit re-identification of individuals and the reuse of personal data for purposes that may individually affect the data subjects;
• require that the terms of the licence to reuse PSI include a data protection clause, whenever personal data are processed;
• where necessary considering the risks to the protection of personal data, require applicants to demonstrate (via a data protection impact assessment or otherwise) that any risks to the protection of personal data are adequately addressed and that the applicant will process data in compliance with applicable data protection law²⁸;
• clarify that reuse can be made contingent upon the purpose for which reuse is made, in derogation from the general rule allowing reuse for any commercial and non-commercial purposes.

In addition, the EDPS suggests:

• to consider allowing costs of pre-processing (such as digitalization), anonymization and aggregation to be charged to license-holders where appropriate, and
• that the Commission develops further guidance, focusing on anonymization and licensing and consult the WP29²⁹ in this regard.

Furthermore other important aspects concerning the open data are presented in the LAPSI³⁰ and EVPSI³¹ EU research projects. Nevertheless the Open Government Data area of interest as to the definition of OFKN provided in the Open Data Handbook³² must be analysed considering also the EU’s legislation about Privacy Directive 95/46/EC now under revision by the «General Data Protection Regulation»³³ (especially for the Right to be Forgotten), IPR Directive 2004/48/EC, INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC and any other directive or regulation that limit the disclosure of confidential information protected in different domain or concerning special human rights (e.g. refugees, victim of violence, witness protection programme).

With this particular regard the topic of anonymization of open data is not a point in the «General Data Protection Regulation» to despite to evident risk to reveal the identity of people, protected also to special status, using data mining or other statistical tools applied to big open data.

The legislative panorama of the Open Data in Europe seems to slow respect some other countries like US, Canada and Australia, but also respect some other Member States such as UK and France.

The common harmonization seems to arrive as a refinement and readjusting of the national regulation rather than an effective instrument for supporting PSI, innovative digital economy and to orient new paradigm of open data. It seems that the excess to prudence still remain the main obstacle to the open data in Europe. Another point is about the coordination with the privacy regulation. There no one line concerning the open data in the new proposal of privacy regulation and nothing is dedicate to the delicate issue of the anonymization and de-anonymization of big data. The big data is mentioned as a key topic in the privacy regulation, but nothing about the possibility to use data mining for extracting the identity of the individuals. Secondary the Europe suffers of a lack of a real FOIA (Freedom Information Act) act like the US. The Open Data package is not robust like a FOIA act and it appears a weak tentative to suggest a limited application to the re-usability of open government data rather than a real strategic plan toward a solid open data economy. On the other hands the techniques improvement especially from the mobile sector ask more raw data and private initiatives are collecting in parallel those data with the risk to use not authorial, complete, legal data. Europe should quickly fill these gaps for coping with the expectations of the Digital Agenda 2020, other wise in the next 10 years we assist to a readjustment de facto on the base of each national policy, without a benefit for the Europe digital economy as whole, with the side effect to reinforce the stronger countries (France, UK) and to increase the digital divide on the open data side in the other countries that for different reasons are not able to arrive to the same strategic agenda.

The agreement on the emendation of the PSI Directive was reached between the European Union Council and the European Union Parliament on 25 March and has been approved by the Council in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) meeting on 10 April 2013. The Parliament must now give its approval at its Plenary session in June before the amended Directive is formally adopted. The final compromised text has improved the above illustrated European Commission proposal by introducing new provisions and improving the recitals of the Directive. The negotiations among other issues focused on charging rules, impartial review body, exclusive arrangements and the needs of that the Directive should be implemented and applied in full compliance with the principles relating to the protection of personal data in accordance with the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995³⁴. This coming step opens innovative perspectives and new issues that need to be analysed deeply and carefully respect to the current status. It is not the first time that the European Union Council provides strong suggestions to the European Parliament and to the European Commission, but those feedbacks were neglected, so a prudential approach is adopted from the authors in this moment.

1. Fioretti M., Open Data: Emerging trends, issues and best practices, report of the DIME EU Project, June 2011, http://www.dime-eu.org/files/active/0/ODOS_report_2.pdf
2. Fioretti M., Open Data, Open Society, report of the DIME EU Project, June 2011, http://www.dime-eu.org/files/active/0/ODOS_report_1.pdf
3. Vickery G., Review of Recent Studies on PSI Re-Use and Related Market Developments. http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/report/ psi_final_version_formatted.docx
4. Pollock, R., Welfare gains from opening up Public Sector Information in the UK, University of Cambridge, undated, accessed 1st March 2011, available at: http://rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/psi_openness_gains.pdf
5. eGovernment Survey 2012, UNPAN, unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan048065.pdf
6. Heli Koski, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy. Marginal «Does Cost Pricing of Public Sector Information Spur Firm Growth?»

 

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Dino Girardi – CIRSFID – University of Bologna, Via Galliera 3, 40121, Bologna, Italy Institute for Law and Informatics – University of Lapland, P.O. Box 122 - FI-96101 Rovaniemi, Finland

Monica Palmirani – CIRSFID – University of Bologna, Via Galliera 3, 40121, Bologna, Italy Institute for Law and Informatics

 

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