[euopendata] Dutch Interior Minister proposes FOIA amendments

Wed Jun 8 10:48:10 UTC 2011

In Finland, the National Audit Office (http://www.vtv.fi/en/) decided to
publish election campaign funding info as open data.

One of the reasons for this was to turn down individual requests for data.
Basically they reply: It's all in our web page.

Esa Mäkinen
Journalist / Helsingin Sanomat

mobile 040 3540 371
Twitter: @EsaMakinen
e-mail: esa.makinen at hs.fi
s-mail: PL 85, 00089 SANOMA
blog: blogit.hs.fi/hsnext
www.hs.fi
a Sanoma company

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>wrote:

> Sorry! I should have explained. Bad news re: limiting FOIA. Good news
> re: open data. The good news was:
>
> > 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
>
> Its worth also noting the argument that proactive release of open data
> mitigates the need for resources to deal with FOI requests for this
> data. I.e. if you publish it proactively (preferably as open data!)
> then you might not have as many requests to deal with. Anyone know
> anything good that has been written about this? Any case studies?
>
> But of course I think that this is tangential to debates about what
> level of resource commitment is appropriate for dealing with FOI
> requests properly. (Pointing out that there are cheaper ingredients is
> different from saying anything about the appropriate cost of the whole
> cake, how much of a commitment to the cake should be made, etc!)
>
> J.
>
> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 12:27 PM, Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Fantastic news!
> >>
> >
> > Johnny, where exactly is the fantastic news? please explain?
> >
> >
> > PDM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> Ton: I also have been meaning to ask - are there any Dutch civil
> >> servants that we could ask to write a brief overview of open data in
> >> the Netherlands for OKF blog, and to invite to the euopendata list,
> >> future events, etc?
> >>
> >> J.
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Ton Zijlstra <ton.zijlstra at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> 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
> >>> -------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> euopendata mailing list
> >>> euopendata at lists.okfn.org
> >>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/euopendata
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Jonathan Gray
> >>
> >> Community Coordinator
> >> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> >> http://blog.okfn.org
> >>
> >> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> >> http://identi.ca/jwyg
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> euopendata mailing list
> >> euopendata at lists.okfn.org
> >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/euopendata
> >>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
>
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>
> _______________________________________________
> euopendata mailing list
> euopendata at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/euopendata
>
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