[euopendata] Moral clauses in data terms & conditions?

Wed May 28 07:11:11 UTC 2014

Hi Michael,

some data points:

The national Norwegian early draft national license used to have a
statement like that (
http://www.epsiplatform.eu/content/norway-discusses-psi-licensing-model),
but they moved away from it quickly (
http://www.epsiplatform.eu/content/norwegian-data-license-feedback-request)
and the final version does not have such a statement (
http://data.norge.no/nlod/en/1.0).

Dutch government bodies who think they need their own license sometimes add
it, but the national policy is CC0 and/or Public Domain.

The Flemish government (Belgium) has a suite of licenses (in which CC0 is
the preferred option), for gov bodies to choose from. Their 'by
attribution'  and other licenses (paid for data, paid for commercial reuse,
who are both discouraged by Flemish gov) however does state "The licensee
commits to avoiding any unlawful re-use of the product" (
http://www.opendataforum.info/files/Modellicenties_ENG.pdf)

The French national open data license does not mention 'illegal' use but
does state:
"The «Re-user» is solely responsible for its re-use of the « Information
»." http://wiki.data.gouv.fr/images/0/05/Open_Licence.pdf
As it obviously should be.

In general I suspect inclusion of the 'illegal use' clause is born out of
the data holders fear for liability, not out of wanting to regulate reuse.

In that light: The Dutch government's standardisation body issued a report
on open data liability risks for government bodies (in Dutch only:
http://www.forumstandaardisatie.nl/fileadmin/os/documenten/Rapportage_open_data_en_aansprakelijkheid_def.pdf)
which rules out risks for gov bodies due to malintented reuse of data they
publish placing that responsibility on the shoulders of the reuser.

best,
Ton

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interdependent Thoughts
Ton Zijlstra

ton at tonzijlstra.eu
+31-6-34489360

http://zylstra.org/blog

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 8:37 AM, Ton Zijlstra <ton.zijlstra at gmail.com>wrote:

> hi Michael,
>
> I have seen those clauses in many government cases, but legally they are
> unnecessary and even void (risking voiding the entire license) I'd say:
>
> What is illegal is illegal regardless of what a data license says.
> Copyright or creative commons licenses normally also don't explicitly say
> that you cannot copy something to use it for illegal purposes. Illegality
> is covered by definition by other laws, as that is what makes something
> illegal ('outside the law') in the first place. Also if I do something
> illegal with some data are you or the state going to sue me for license
> infringement? I think not.
>
> Second, immoral is not a legal term and highly ambiguous and subjective.
> Unless it is written down in law (which makes it illegal, not immoral).
>
> Third, open government data has its own legal basis, usually in freedom of
> information acts (FOIA) and EU PSI Directive (in any case it builds on what
> is already public data, and then adresses reuse of that public data). In
> none of those, is 'illegal reuse of data' a ground to deny making data
> public. The reason (next to illegal already being illegal anyway) is that
> under FOIA gov data providers are not allowed to demand me to state my
> interest. Asking me 'what are you going to use it for', which you
> implicitly try to do with a 'no illegal' clause, is simply not allowed.
> Something is public by the nature of a gov decision, and then reuse can be
> allowed, again by nature of a gov decision. (And by mid 2015, it is only a
> decision on making something public or not. Reuse is no longer a decision
> factor) The potential reader or user of that data is not an allowed general
> factor in deciding on publication.
>
> What triggers your interest in these type of useless licenses and
> specifically in connection with open data? And what would you want to teach
> in that regard?
> Because in general using data for less than legit or not so moral purposes
> is not tied to 'open' in any relevant way I'd say.
>
> Of course data can be used for all kinds of nefarious reasons. That is
> generally true for any technology such as kitchen knives.
> And it does happen, but if I would hazard a guess I would guess it happens
> mostly with data that wasn't acquired legally (such as collecting personal
> information against privacy law stipulations), sometimes in combination
> with public information. Or acting on made up/false information (banks,
> insurers). And by other entities other than the public such as NSA, Chinese
> army, etc.
>
> I would be interested in clearly abusive reuse examples (I have seen
> ironic prototypes of 'burglar apps' matching the '500 richest people in the
> country' list with real estate prizes and geo-locations) that you come
> across.
> Interestingly enough in the past decades of growing reuse of government
> data I haven't come across any scandals concerning open data. You?
>
> best,
> Ton
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Interdependent Thoughts
> Ton Zijlstra
>
> ton at tonzijlstra.eu
> +31-6-34489360
>
> http://zylstra.org/blog
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 11:44 PM, Michael Hörz <hoerz at michael-hoerz.de>wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm presently teaching computer science students in Berlin on the subject
>> of open data.
>>
>> We will be looking at the "far side" of open data (i.e. using open data
>> for not so good things).
>>
>> In this context I'm interested in examples of moral clauses in terms &
>> conditions for using data.
>>
>> Such as "not use any of the Information for an illegal or immoral
>> purpose" (http://dashboard.glasgow.gov.uk/ckansupport/open.glasgow.
>> gov.uk_Licence_version%201.0.htm)
>>
>> So if you know of such terms, especially with interesting wording, please
>> share them.
>>
>> Thanks a lot,
>> Michael
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