Open Data: re-use by economic operators

The amount of data generated worldwide is increasing exponentially in recent years. To ensure greater transparency, collaboration, and proximity to citizens, the European Union has initiated a process of change in the public arena, focused on Open Data.

As pointed out in the EU portal under “EU Vocabularies”, when we talk about Open Data we mean the “practice of publishing (raw) data in a way that is accessible, reusable, machine readable and licensed permissively. Can be generated by a wide range of parties, including public authorities, the semi-public sector, businesses, and the public”.

It is therefore data accessible to all, made available by public administrations or private companies that can be reused by natural or legal persons for various purposes, including the implementation of their business models or the simple identification of new ones, or also for research, journalism, development, or academic purposes.

The purpose of publishing data solely for administrative transparency has been progressively replaced over time in favour of the re-use of open PA data. This has happened above all about so-called dynamic data, consisting of documents in digital format subject to frequent or real-time updates, such as meteorological, environmental, or road traffic data, whose economic value depends on their immediate availability and constant updating.

The shift towards the economic exploitation of the information made available by the PA took place with the enactment of Directive 2003/98/EC, the so-called Public Service Information Directive (PSI Directive), on the re-use of PA data by those who request them, which was then implemented in Italy with Legislative Decree no. 36/2006, which started a process of strong promotion of the re-use of Public Administration data in Italy.

The 2003 Directive, then partly amended by a subsequent 2013 Directive (Directive 2013/37/EU), was recast in the more recent Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council, aimed at introducing the new open data framework and re-use of information in the public sector.

Indeed, the opening of data is widely stimulated and encouraged by the European Union in order to:

• ensuring the transparency of public administration,
• ensure greater collaboration and innovation,
• enable the economic exploitation of data, thus benefiting the economy.

The Directive addresses several issues in this respect, among which one can mention:

The re-use of data (Art.1 and Art.4)

The Directive lays down a set of minimum rules on re-use and practical arrangements to facilitate the re-use of:

• existing documents held by public bodies in the Member States,
• existing documents held by public enterprises,
• research data (under the conditions set out in Article 10)
• high-value data (under the conditions set out in Article 14).

To be able to access and subsequently re-use the data, interested parties only need to submit a request to the public sector bodies, which will examine it and make the documents available to the applicant electronically where possible. It should be noted that public sector bodies will have to inform the applicant of the reasons in the event of a negative decision on the request for re-use, based on the provisions of the access regime in the relevant Member State.

Available formats (Art. 5)

The European Union encourages public bodies to manage data in a format that allows portability to promote its free circulation through the exchange of data in a structured and common dimension. Specifically, the 2019 Directive sees the application of this principle through the provision by public bodies and enterprises of documents in any pre-existing language or format, encouraging openness by design and by default.

The provision of this information, preferably in a commonly used electronic format, will enable citizens and businesses to find new ways of using it and to create innovative products and services.

Tariffs (Art. 6)

The re-use of documents/data is completely free of charge. However, marginal costs incurred for the reproduction, making available, and dissemination of documents, as well as for the anonymisation of personal data or measures taken to protect confidential business information, may be recovered.

Standard Licences (Art. 8)

In principle, the re-use of data is not subject to conditions, unless these conditions are objective, proportionate, non-discriminatory, and justified based on a public interest objective. The European Directive also provides that even where conditions are attached to re-use, they must not restrict competition and reduce the possibilities for re-use.

What prospects for the future?

EU Directive 2019/1024 set a deadline of 17 July 2021 to implement the laws, regulations, and administrative provisions on data and the re-use of public sector information.

Specifically, in the Italian scenario, the Directive was included among the acts of transposition employing the 2019-2020 European Delegation Law (Law no. 53 of 22 April 2021), which delegated the Government to the transposition of directives and the implementation of other acts of the European Union.

On December 15, 2021, Italian Legislative Decree No. 200/2021 implementing Directive (EU) 2019/1024 came into force. This measure introduces important novelties on the topic, with possible implications for applications in the European market and interesting news for citizens and businesses.

The transposition of the Directive by the individual Member States represents an important opportunity for the dissemination of Open Data among economic operators of various sectors. In fact, the higher the quality of the Open Data made available by the PA, the more likely it is that the data will be used to create innovative services and implement the research sector.