Re-use of Public Sector Information EC Project “Breaking Barriers to eGovernment”

1. Re-use of Public Sector Information EC Project “Breaking Barriers to eGovernment” Cristina Dos Santos CRID – University of Namur Belgium cristina.dossantos@fundp.ac.be

2. Project ‘Breaking Barriers to eGovernment’ • EU Project funded by the European Commission – DG Information Society and Media • Led by the Oxford Internet Institute - OII (University of Oxford, UK) In partnership with : • CRID – Research Centre for Computer and Law (University of Namur, Belgium), • Gov3 (London, UK), • TILT - Institute for Law, Technology and Society (University of Tilburg, Netherlands), • University of Murcia (Spain)

3. Project ‘Breaking Barriers to eGovernment’ • Our study’s aims: • Investigate the barriers to expanding effective eGovernment services • Identify the legal, institutional and organizational foundations of barriers • Recommend European initiatives to break barriers to eGovernment

4. Project ‘Breaking Barriers to eGovernment’ • Seven Key eGovernment Barriers identified: - Leadership failures - Financial inhibitors - Digital divides and choices - Poor coordination - Workplace and organizational inflexibility - Lack of trust - Poor technical design

5. Project ‘Breaking Barriers to eGovernment’ • Eight Key Legal Dimensions studied: - Re-use of Public Sector Information (CRID) - Privacy and Data Protection (CRID) - Public Administration Transparency (CRID) - Authentication and Identification (TILT) - Intellectual Property Rights (TILT) - Liability (TILT) - Administrative Law (Univ. Murcia) - Relationships between Public Administrations, citizens and other ICT actors (Univ. Murcia)

6. Project ‘Breaking Barriers to eGovernment’ • Definition of an eGovernment barrier? « Characteristics – either real or perceived – of legal, social, technological or institutional context which work against developing eGovernment at the EU level, either: because they impede demand, by acting as a disincentive or barrier for users to engage with eGovernment services; or because they impede supply, by acting as a disincentive or barrier for public sector organizations to provide eGovernment services » • As the research progresses, we will continuously reassess our definitions of the main categories, refining current ones or adding new ones when appropriate

7. Re-use of Public Sector Information: Description • Re-use of PSI is defined as “the use by persons or legal entities of documents held by public sector bodies for commercial or non-commercial purposes other than the initial purpose related to the public task for which the documents were produced” (source: PSI Directive). • Many eGovernment services depend on the re-use of information gathered or produced by public bodies (which hold details about citizens, enterprises, land use, public decisions, vehicles, food, meteorology, health, etc). • As the public sector information(PSI) is unique, the private sector has also a great interest in this data as it may represent a unique source of certain information, while the public sector has also an interest in its own re-use (e.g. for commercial purposes).

8. Re-use of Public Sector Information: European context • EC Synergy Guidelines in 1989 (not binding), EC Green Paper in 1998 • The ‘PSI Directive’ (Dir. 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information)  the EU took action in this domain on the basis of the Subsidiarity Principle of Art.5 of the EU Treaty, but was limited by the principle of proportionnality set out in the same article (does not impose the re-use) • The EU re-use legal landscape is made of a patchwork of legal layers  the EU layer is built on the access to public information regimes allowed within the lower layers in Member States and the specific re-use rules applicable at national, regional, state or even at local levels

9. Re-use of Public Sector Information:Relationship to the 7 barrier categories identified • Poor coordination no overall guarantee in the EU regarding PSI re-use (actually only the commercial re-use is not allowed in all MS); problems related to intellectual property rights of third parties, data protection requirements • Leadership failures the PSI Directive does not impose the re-use faculty • Financial inhibitors too blurred notion of “reasonable return of investments”

10. Re-use of Public Sector Information:Relationship to the 7 barrier categories identified (2) • Digital divides and choiceslack of transparency and related practical issues as: charges for re-use, re-usability of documents formats, identifying the availability of documents, language diversity and common standards for storing PSI • Workplace and organizational inflexibility lack of a European culture of PSI re-use; problems of exclusion of some documents, competition between public and private interests • Poor technical design  documents formats, need for conformity to technical open standards to ensure wide accessibility

11. Re-use of Public Sector Information:Remaining barriers identified about pricing • PSI Directive:allows to charge also the costs of production of PSI  problems of “double” charge to re-users, problems of evaluation of such costs, necessity to ensure that they remain “reasonable”… • Transparency: even if it is clearly requested by the PSI Directive, it is still lacking in the practice of the Member States!  availability of information about prices? • Need of clear EU definitions of “public task”, “reasonable return of investment”, …

12. Networking to Project “Breaking Barriers to eGovernment” Project Website, Newsletters Subscrition and Forum on: http://www.egovbarriers.org Contact: Dr. Rebecca Eynon (Project Manager) Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford, UK Email:rebecca.eynon@oii.ox.ac.uk Tel.: +44 (0) 1865 287210

13. Thank you for your attention! Cristina Dos Santos (CRID - University of Namur, Belgium) Email:cristina.dossantos@fundp.ac.be http://www.crid.be/