[euopendata] Dutch Interior Minister proposes FOIA amendments

Wed Jun 8 10:14:50 UTC 2011

Hi all,

The Dutch minister for the interior recently made a speech on the 'day for
freedom of the press' in which he suggested to limit the FOIA as it was a
lot of work for the civil servants involved. That was met with a lot of
protest of course.
Meanwhile the minister has send a letter to parliament stating the actual
changes he wants to make to the FOIA.
While those protest causing elements are indeed also in the letter (though
in a less worrying way than one might have feared) there is also in terms of
open data a lot to be liked:

no copyright or database right claims by any public service body
maximum charge for getting material is incremental cost of distribution,
with no charging at all being also fine. This holds for all PSBs, including
the ones currently charging for their data.
Data catalogue explicitly mentioned as instrument in stimulating publication
and data re-use.
PSBs encouraged to much more pro-actively publish their material
Level of knowledge on FOIA and re-use to be raised with all PSBs.

more here
http://www.epsiplatform.eu/news/news/dutch_letter_to_parliament_on_foia

best,
Ton
-------------------------------------------
Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

ton at tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog
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