[euopendata] Dutch Interior Minister proposes FOIA amendments

Wed Jun 8 10:57:30 UTC 2011

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 12:49 PM, Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for clarification
>
> yes, publishing proactively is the way but....  even that needs to be 'managed'

Of course.

> At the moment, organisations  are encouraged to publish proactively,
> however, few of them do it 'in a meaningful way' (other than for
> window dressing)

Some do. E.g. the commitments to release fine grained spending data in
the UK. It might not be perfect, but I consider it a difficult to
implement and meaningful step! (The internal opposition that it has
been met with is perhaps testimony to this...)

> There should be some minimum legal standard of proactivity
> mandated, imho (for example: organisations should at least publish xyz
> information proactively, every so often etc)

Indeed. Much like the Open Government Directive in the US. Which is,
as you say, difficult to implement and needs to be managed. I
understand they've had a hard time getting departments to comply.

> Also I prefer to look at open data adoption and FOIA as independent

Absolutely. There is room for more of a rapprochement [1], but broadly
agree that in practise it make sense to treat them separately. That
said Katleen Janssen at KU Leuven has done some interesting and
compelling work that these should more closely connected [2].

[1] e.g. as we argue in: http://writetoreply.org/beyondaccess/
[2] http://blog.okfn.org/2010/07/21/one-information-policy-for-freedom-of-information-and-re-use/

> FOIA is there to address the need of accessing info which is obviously
> not open (the other end of the problem spectrum)
>
> Similarly, publishing 'useless'  open data also does not help

Agree!

J.

> Cheers
>
> P
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 11:41 AM, 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
>>
>

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
http://identi.ca/jwyg