PSI on the Malmö agenda!
Source: eGov 2009 & Open Declaration on Public Service in the EU & Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF)
‘Reusing, remixing and building on’: the importance of making data legally open
Malmö: 13 October 2009
The draft programme for the 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference has been published. The programme includes on Friday 20 November a session titled: PS10: A Vision for eGovernment in 2020. The programme states:
We are living in a period of considerable social and economic turmoil. Governments have to learn how to live-up to new and unprecedented challenges. The globalisation of the economy calls for new forms of governance. In this new world, the way citizens, businesses and governments work together will have to change as well.
ICT can contribute to developing these new forms of interaction between governments, citizens and businesses. It can support new forms of local and global democracy and new forms of collaboration between the business community and governments.
In this session, a panel of speakers will present their visions of ICT and future societies. The audience is invited to take part in this discussion.
Chair: Marc Frequin, Director General for Energy and Telecom, Ministry for Economic Affairs, Netherlands
- Lennart Nordfors, Vice President, Gullers Group, Sweden
- Jeremy Millard, Senior Consultant, Danish Technological Institute, Centre for Policy and Business Analysis, Denmark
- David Osimo, Managing Partner, Tech4i2, Belgium and Paul Johnston, Director, Internet Business Solutions Group, CISCO
- Hannu Syrjälä, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tieto, Finland
David Osimo and Paul Johnston will be presenting the Open Declaration on Public Services 2.0
In preparation for the Ministerial Conference the draft Open Declaration on Public Service in the European Union continues to be refined.
One of the final topics published prior to the closure date for comments on the draft Open Declaration (13th October 2009) was one from the Open Knowledge Foundation titled: ‘Reusing, remixing and building on’: the importance of making data legally open. The topic states:
In order to re-use this material, citizens have to have the legal right to do so. Public bodies can allow and encourage the re-use of their material by using a license or legal tool that is compliant with the Open Knowledge Definition to make their content and data open. In this sense transparency – or just putting things online – is not enough. Citizens need to be granted the right to re-use.
European governments are already under an obligation to open up their holdings under European Council Directive 2003/98/EC, “on the re-use of public sector information”. The declaration on public services 2.0 should help to push for real openness, not just accessibility on a website – to help the next generation of web services, for citizens by citizens, flourish.
Furthermore where data is being used to provide public web services, citizens should be allowed to access and re-use data directly in raw form. Rather than just allowing access via web interface, an API or a value added service, official bodies should allow data to be downloaded directly, in bulk, in a format which allows it to be re-used easily. As Open Knowledge Foundation Director Rufus Pollock wrote in 2007 (echoed by Tim Berners-Lee at TED):
“We want the data raw, and we want the data now!
The Open Knowledge Foundation blog has published a topic titled: Opening up e-Government in Europe: accessibility, transparency and the ‘right to reuse’
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