[open-government] Defining Open Government Data?

Mon Nov 15 19:50:55 UTC 2010

The 'privatization of data' through outsourcing can be a concern, but there are some examples where the definition of 'public authority' subject to the FOI legislation should be broad enough to cover these types of outsourcing deals.

For instance, the Belgian legislation includes bodies that have been entrusted by a 'real' public body with a service performed in the public interest. The European directive on environmental information should probably also be broad enough to cover these situations.

Is the UK definition not broad enough to cover this?

Best regards,
katleen

From: open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org [mailto:open-government-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Tony Kennick
Sent: maandag 15 november 2010 13:01
To: open-government at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [open-government] Defining Open Government Data?

2010/11/15 Javier Ruiz <javier at openrightsgroup.org<mailto:javier at openrightsgroup.org>>
One of the key improvements to this area would be to extend the FoI obligations to private companies doing public works.

Any such extension would need careful drafting so it couldn't be used by competitors to dig out data from parts of any such company.

 The amount of "public data" could almost disappear in cases such as Suffolk council in UK, which plan to outsource every single service http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11398678. Even the remaining info on contracting would likely be denied on commercial confidentiality grounds.

The governments plans for data to be opened up so the public can directly assess the performance of local authorities only makes sense if it doesn't matter whether the council provides services directly or by contracting out. Whole swathes of data publishing will need to be set out in contracts as a required as part of the service delivery.

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