[open-government] "The Government of Catalonia's Open Data Project is already a reality"

Sun Nov 14 15:22:58 UTC 2010

Jacobo and Pedro

a few of us have been actively researching the unfolding of the FOI act in
the UK vs other countries in Europe, for some years

What we have noticed so far, is that while having a piece of legislation in
place is a good start, there are plenty of red tape issues that make the
actual getting to the information very
expensive, time consuming and sometimes unnerving exercise.

The FOI in the UK  (nore in the EU that I know of) does not seem to
prescribe what optimal format the data should be stored to make it easier to
access and fulfil a FOI request, that means that it can take several pieces
of correspondence and the work of various people including archivists to dig
up pieces of information simply because the way it is stored is designed to
make it difficult and expensive

 As the result of this investigation, our research team is issuing
recommendations for future amendment of the act itself, in the meantime, it
would be great to know that you
are aware of the problems we are facing with the act itself, so that you are
not going to repeat the same mistakes, hopefully.

I am very interested in learning more about what your activities and
challenges
are, and hope you' ll help us maintain our records up to date

Here are some references that may be useful

http://www.statewatch.org/foi/foi.htm

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/09/eu-sued-for-lack-of-transparency/68922.aspx

Hope to meet you next week at the camp

Best regards

Paola Di Maio

2010/11/14 Pedro Markun <pedro at esfera.mobi>

> Hey Jacobo,
>
> great to hear from you. We've been doing the same thing here in Brazil with
> a community called Transparência Hacker. Brazil also doesn't have a FOIA
> altought the law is already in process of beeing voted and our group ensured
> that the text (and by ensured I mean 'we wrote ourselves) complies with all
> the Open Data Principles - so would love to exchange notes on that.
>
> We've been in BCN the last week (for Drumbeat Festival) and while I was
> reading Jonathan email I got really pissed that we missed that and couldn't
> talk to no one while we were there.
>
> Luckly, Daniela, who works with me, will be at the Camp. Hope you guys can
> catch up!
>
> []'s
> Pedro Markun
>
> On Sun, Nov 14, 2010 at 10:35 AM, Jacobo Elosua <jet at ezaromedia.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi Jonathan and all.
>>
>> This is my first mail to the list. I am a member of Pro Bono Publico, the
>> NGO that has been most active in the OGD space in Spain to date.
>>
>> The news about the Catalonian government OGD release are good, but they
>> need
>> to be read in conjunction with a few sobering facts: Spain (with
>> Luxembourg,
>> I believe) is the only EU country without 'Freedom of
>> Information-equivalent' legislation right now. We hope this reality will
>> change soon. There is a draft law in the making, although not particularly
>> advanced... (1). In addition to that, the data sets made available
>> proactively are still a million miles away from the desired level. On
>> governmental spending, to name one area, quality data availability is
>> still
>> minimal.
>>
>> A couple of us will be attending the Camp next Thursday and Friday. We are
>> looking forward to getting to know personally as many of you as possible.
>> We
>> really want to establish good working partnerships to be able to
>> contribute
>> as much as possible to the advancement of the OGD agenda from where we sit
>> geographically (2). We have a lot to learn from you guys.
>>
>> Best regards.
>>
>>
>> NOTES:
>> (1) http://www.access-info.org/
>> (2) my colleague David Cabo sent an email on Friday to
>> wdmmg-discuss at lists.okfn.org detailing our (pretty much his) work in
>> Spain
>> along the 'Where does my money go' lines. I am unclear about the different
>> lists and degrees of overlap. Let us know if it makes sense to forward it
>> to
>> this list.
>>
>>
>> -----Mensaje original-----
>> De: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org
>> [mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] En nombre de Jonathan
>> Gray
>> Enviado el: viernes, 12 de noviembre de 2010 16:45
>> Para: open-government at lists.okfn.org
>> Asunto: [open-government] "The Government of Catalonia's Open Data Project
>> is already a reality"
>>
>> Great news! ;-)
>>
>>
>> http://blocs.gencat.cat/blocs/AppPHP/gencat/2010/11/09/el-projecte-dades-obe
>>
>> rtes-de-la-generalitat-de-catalunya-ja-es-una-realitatthe-government-of-cata
>>
>> lonia%E2%80%99s-open-data-project-is-already-a-realityel-proyecto-datos-abie
>> rtos-de-la-generalidad-de-c/?lang=en<http://blocs.gencat.cat/blocs/AppPHP/gencat/2010/11/09/el-projecte-dades-obertes-de-la-generalitat-de-catalunya-ja-es-una-realitatthe-government-of-catalonia%E2%80%99s-open-data-project-is-already-a-realityel-proyecto-datos-abiertos-de-la-generalidad-de-c/?lang=en>
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan Gray
>>
>> Community Coordinator
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>> http://blog.okfn.org
>>
>> http://twitter.com/jwyg
>> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>>
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