[open-government] Open government data in Brazil

Wed Jun 30 21:19:40 UTC 2010

I agree with Paul. 

Also try and bring accountability to the process by requiring reporting or some other enforcement? mechanism.

In Australia in Gov 2 Taskforce Engage Report http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/gov20taskforcereport/recommendations.htm
we said amongst other things

Central recommendation: 
A declaration of open government by the Australian Government
Accompanying the Government’s announcement of its policy response to this report, a declaration of open government should be made at the highest level, stating that:
using technology to increase citizen engagement and collaboration in making policy and providing service will help achieve a more consultative, participatory and transparent government 
public sector information is a national resource and that releasing as much of it on as permissive terms as possible will maximise its economic and social value to Australians and reinforce its contribution to a healthy democracy 
online engagement by public servants, involving robust professional discussion as part of their duties or as private citizens, benefits their agencies, their professional development, those with whom they are engaged and the Australian public. This engagement should be enabled and encouraged. 
The fulfilment of the above at all levels of government is integral to the Government’s objectives including public sector reform, innovation and using the national investment in broadband to achieve an informed, connected and democratic community.

Recommendation 6: 
Make public sector information open, accessible and reusable
6.1 By default Public Sector Information19 (PSI) should be:
free20 
based on open standards 
easily discoverable 
understandable21 
machine-readable22 
freely reusable and transformable.23 
6.2 PSI should be released as early as practicable and regularly updated to ensure its currency is maintained.
6.3 Consistent with the need for free and open reuse and adaptation, PSI released should be licensed under the Creative Commons BY standard24 as the default.
6.4 Use of more restrictive licensing arrangements should be reserved for special circumstances only, and such use is to be in accordance with general guidance or specific advice provided by the proposed OIC.
6.5 The proposed OIC should develop policies to maximise the extent to which existing PSI be relicensed Creative Commons BY, taking account of undue administrative burden this may cause for agencies. To minimise administrative burden, the taskforce envisages that rules could be adopted whereby a large amount of PSI that has already been published could be automatically designated Creative Commons BY. This would include government reports, legislation and records that are already accessible to the public. Individuals or organisations should also be able to request that other PSI be relicensed Creative Commons BY on application, with a right of appeal should the request be refused, to the proposed new Information Commissioner.
6.6 Where ownership of the PSI data rests with the Commonwealth, data should be released under Creative Commons BY licence. Negotiation with the other party/ies will be required to ensure release under Creative Commons BY for PSI which is not owned by the Commonwealth, or is shared with another party/ies. New contracts or agreements with a third party should endeavour to include a clause clearly stating the Commonwealth’s obligation to publish relevant data and that this be under a Creative Commons BY licence.25 This policy should become mandatory for all contracts signed by the Commonwealth after June 2011.
6.7 Copyright policy should be amended so that works covered by Crown copyright are automatically licensed under a Creative Commons BY licence at the time at which Commonwealth records become available for public access under the Archives Act 1983.
6.8 Any decision to withhold the release of PSI, other than where there is a legal obligation to withhold release, should only be made with the agreement of, or in conformity with policies endorsed by the proposed OIC and consistent with the Australian Government’s FOI policy, noting that:
6.8.1 in the case of structured data,26 agencies must exhaust options to protect privacy and confidentiality before seeking an exemption27 
6.8.2 agencies must proactively identify and release, without request, such data that might reasonably be considered as holding value to parties outside the agency.
6.9 The Australian Government should engage other members of the Council of Australian Governments to extend these principles into a national information policy agreed between all levels of government; federal, state, territory and local.
6.10 In order to accelerate the adoption of Government 2.0, in addition to any distribution arrangements they wish to pursue, agencies should ensure that the PSI they release should be discoverable and accessible via a central portal (data.gov.au) containing details of the nature, format and release of the PSI.
6.11 Within the first year of its establishment the proposed OIC, in consultation with the lead agency, should develop and agree a common methodology to inform government on the social and economic value generated from published PSI.
6.12 The major agencies28 under the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act) should use the common methodology to report their performance in the release of PSI in their annual reports, commencing from the first anniversary of the establishment of the proposed OIC.
6.13 The proposed OIC should annually publish a report outlining the contribution of each agency to the consolidated value of Commonwealth PSI, commencing from the first anniversary of the establishment of the proposed OIC. The report should be published online and be accessible for comment and discussion.
6.14 Following government acceptance of the initial ‘Value of PSI Report’, the proposed OIC should consider the development of a ‘lite’ version of the common methodology for use by other FMA Act agencies.
6.15 The taskforce notes the proposed changes to the FOI Amendment (Reform) Bill 2009 to have the proposed OIC issue guidelines to support the future operations of the Act as described in the Explanatory Memorandum for Schedule 2, Section 8.29 To ensure effective and consistent implementation of access to PSI these guidelines should give due consideration to the concepts outlined above.

Professor Brian Fitzgerald
Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation
Law Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
http://www.law.qut.edu.au/staff/lsstaff/fitzgerald.jsp
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Fitzgerald,_Brian.html

2 George Street
Brisbane Qld 4000
email: bf.fitzgerald at qut.edu.au
ph: 61 7 3138 2057
CRICOS No: 00213J
________________________________________
From: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org [open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Uhlir, Paul [PUhlir at nas.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 1 July 2010 2:45 AM
To: 'Jonathan Gray'; open-government at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [open-government] Open government data in Brazil

It seems to me that the Brasilia policy is only about access to government info and not about its (re)use, which presumably would be subject to copyright or any other related rights that may be applicable to government info in Brasil/Brasilia. While access online is very important, it would be better if the reuse right were explicitly stated, as you suggest, perhaps even better with CC license(s).

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Gray
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2010 11:26 AM
To: open-government at lists.okfn.org
Subject: [open-government] Open government data in Brazil

Carlos Affonso at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Brazil recently
let me know about a draft new bill proposition on the "Civil Framework
for the Brazilian Internet", which refers to opening up public data:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=1hZny_ki-xBmsFFJiu7FcgNTxdTNZ5mqfY2rj-zyEco9GL2E7Gm52yPJzTy0S&hl=en&authkey=CNyireAO
http://www.a2kbrasil.org.br/ENG/Draft-Bill-Propostion-on-Civil

I presume the key sentence is:

"The Federal Union, States, Cities and Federal District of Brasilia
shall be guided by the following directives in the development of the
Internet in Brazil: [...] V. the disclosure and dissemination of
public data and information in an open and structured manner."

This is excellent news! I think it would be useful to have this
group's input on the wording.

E.g. do folks think this is strong enough to imply that the data is
open for anyone to reuse for any purpose (e.g. including commercial)?

Compare wording from recent UK Public Data Principles (launched on Friday):

"Public data will be released under the same open licence which
enables free reuse, including commercial reuse" [1]
Or from the US Open Government Directive:

"To the extent practicable and subject to valid restrictions, agencies
should publish information online in an open format that can be
retrieved, downloaded, indexed, and searched by commonly used web
search applications. An open format is one that is platform
independent, machine readable, and made available to the public
without restrictions that would impede the re-use of that
information." [2]

Would love to hear opinions on this! Quite crucial as presumably will
inform pricing/licensing policy and if it is too weak then may be push
for noncommercial/no derivs restrictions, which may mitigate many of
the potential benefits...

Personally I would like to see something like:

"the disclosure and dissemination of public data and information in a
structured manner, free for anyone to use for any purpose"

All the best,

Jonathan

[1] <http://data.gov.uk/blog/new-public-sector-transparency-board-and-public-data-transparency-principles>

[2] <http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive>

--
Jonathan Gray

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

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

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