[OKFN-FR] 19 ONGs demandent au Parlement Européen de voter l'open data des Registres des Entreprises et des Bénéficiaires Effectifs dans le cadre de la révision de la Directive ISP

Thu Nov 29 14:54:42 UTC 2018

 Bonjour,

à l'initiative d'Open State Foundation 19 ONGs dont Open Knowledge France
demandent au Parlement Européen de voter l'open data des Registres des
Entreprises et des Bénéficiaires Effectifs dans le cadre de la révision de
la Directive ISP.

Lettre en anglais disponible ci-dessous et en ligne ici :
https://openstate.eu/en/2018/11/psidirectiverevision/

NGOs urge European Parliament to vote for free access to company and UBO
registers

*On Monday the 3rd of December the European Parliament talks about the
revision of the Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive
<https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/proposal-revision-public-sector-information-psi-directive>.
This Directive promotes the release of re-usable information from European
public sector organizations. The revision focuses on reducing market entry
barriers, in particular for SMEs, by limiting the exceptions that allow
public bodies to charge for the re-use of their data more than the marginal
costs of dissemination. The original revision prevents member states from
protecting databases like, company registers and Ultimate Beneficial
Ownership (UBO) registers, with sui generis database rights. However, an
amendment was proposed
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-623.664+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN>
to remove this passage from the revision. A coalition of twenty civil
society organizations urges the European Parliament to reject this
amendment to prevent countries from restricting access to company and UBO
registers.*

The original revision of the PSI-Directive would limit the use of *sui
generis* database rights that public bodies use to limit access and re-use
of open registers. The signatories find this a step in the right direction,
as it lowers the barrier for fundamental datasets that promote economic
growth and the prevention of crime, to be accessible to the many, and not
the few. The proposed amendment 32
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-623.664+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN>
will nullify this positive purpose of the revision of the PSI Directive.
Database rights and company and UBO registers

Especially for company and UBO registers, the limitation of marginal costs
and *sui generis* database rights are important not only for the economic
value SMEs may generate by reusing the dataset. Journalists, research
institutions and citizens enjoy equal rights to information and
transparency. Although most European countries charge users for accessing
their company registers, others started to grant free and open access to
the registers <https://www.access-info.org/company-register-transparency>,
such as France, Belgium, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Denmark and the United
Kingdom. The signatories fear that these member states will start charging
for accessing the UBO registers, when these registers become mandatory in
2019, in accordance with the fifth European Anti-Money Laundering Directive.

An example of a country that charges users for accessing their company
registers is the Netherlands. The Dutch government is further trying to
impose
<https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/brieven_regering/detail?id=2018Z10319&did=2018D31809>*sui
generis* database rights on the register to prevent the re-use of the
register. Latvia charges <https://www.access-info.org/cos/17321> 12 euros
for accessing a company-record and Slovenia charges 122.000 euros
<https://www.access-info.org/cos/17321> to get the whole database. Croatia
is currently planning how much it will charge
<https://www.gong.hr/hr/dobra-vladavina/pristup-informacijama/nedopustiva-naplata-podataka-iz-registra-stvarnih-/>
for accessing the UBO register. Preventing re-use with database rights and
charging for access to these registers blocks innovation and charges SMEs
and other interested parties keen to access the data with unnecessary
costs. Based on research
<https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/final-report-study-egovernment-and-reduction-administrative-burden-smart-20120061>
we know that the macro economic benefits of freely available and re-usable
registers surpass the costs for both the public and the private
sector. A cost-benefit
analysis <http://treasury.gov.uk/media/9/9/ownership_long.pdf> commissioned
by the UK’s Treasury Department in 2002 recommended implementing a public
register because it estimated (conservatively) that it would result in at
least £30 million of gains across other areas of the government, far
outweighing any additional costs.

For law enforcement and people to analyze and work with the UBO register
they need free access to the company registers to match the listed company
to the beneficiaries. The same goes for matching registers from different
jurisdictions. This is essential for making the UBO register effective to
prevent fraud, corruption, money-laundering and for creating legal
certainty.

*Amendment 32 and database rights*

The first draft of the revised PSI directive includes language that would
prevent member states from using *sui generis *database rights and clearly
defines limitations for applying marginal costs: *‘In particular where
public sector bodies are holders of the right provided for in Article 7(1)
they should not exercise it in order to prevent or restrict the re-use of
data contained in databases’.* Amendment 32 would remove this provision in
the PSI directive and enable member states to charge fees and limit access
to these registers. The civil society organizations urge the European
Parliament to prevent countries from restricting access to company and UBO
registers. The revision also recommends to draw up a European High Value
Datalist. The signatories strongly suggest to add company registers and UBO
registers to this list as they are vital datasets that promote economic
growth and the prevention of crime.

*The letter to the European Parliament can be found here
<https://openstate.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2018/11/Letter-to-MEP-concerning-revision-PSI-directive-and-amendment-32.pdf>.*

*Signatories*

   - Tom Kunzler, Interim-CEO, Open State Foundation – Netherlands
   <https://openstate.eu/en/>
   - Karina Carvalho, Executive Director, Transparency International
   Portugal <https://www.transparency.org/country/PRT>
   - Karin Christiansen, Interim-CEO – Open Knowledge International
   <https://okfn.org/>
   - Walter Palmetshofer, Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland
   <https://okfn.de/>
   - Charalampos Bratsas, Open Knowledge Greece
   <https://okfn.org/network/greece/>
   - Pieter Colpaert and the board of directors, Open Knowledge Belgium
   <https://be.okfn.org/>
   - Pierre Chrzanowski, on behalf of the Board, Open Knowledge France
   <https://fr.okfn.org/>
   - Alek Tarkowski, Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation – Poland
   <https://centrumcyfrowe.pl/en/homepage/>
   - Nora van der Linden, Director, Kennisland – Netherlands
   <https://www.kl.nl/>
   - Timothy Vollmer, Senior Public Policy Manager, Creative Commons
   <https://creativecommons.nl/>
   - Davide Del Monte, Executive Director, Transparency International Italia
   <https://www.transparency.it/>
   - Lisette Kalshoven, Vice President Communia
   <http://communia-project.eu/>
   - Anne Scheltema Beduin, Executive Director, Transparency International
   Netherlands <https://www.transparency.nl/>
   - Jelena Berković, Executive Director, GONG – Croatia
   <https://www.gong.hr/en/>
   - Teemu Ropponen, Executive Director, Open Knowledge Finland
   <https://fi.okfn.org/>
   - Laure Brillaud, Policy Officer, Anti-Money Laundering,Transparency
   International EU <https://transparency.eu/>
   - Mollie Hanley, OpenCorporates <https://opencorporates.com/>
   - Zosia Sztykowski, OpenOwnership <https://openownership.org/>
   - Niels Erik Kaaber Rasmussen, styregruppen, Open Knowledge Denmark
   <https://dk.okfn.org/>
   - Sandor Lederer, director, K-Monitor Hungary <http://k-monitor.hu/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/okfn-fr/attachments/20181129/cc67752f/attachment.html>