Mireille van Eechoud

Open Data, Privacy, and Fair Information Principles: Towards a Balancing Framework

Open data are held to contribute to a wide variety of social and political goals, including strengthening transparency, public participation and democratic accountability, promoting economic growth and innovation, and enabling greater public sector efficiency and cost savings. However, releasing government data that contain personal information may threaten privacy and related rights and interests. In this paper we ask how these privacy interests can be respected, without unduly hampering benefits from disclosing public sector information. We propose a balancing framework to help public authorities address this question in different contexts. The framework takes into account different levels of privacy risks for different types of data. It also separates decisions about access and re-use, and highlights a range of different disclosure routes. A circumstance catalogue lists factors that might be considered when assessing whether, under which conditions, and how a dataset can be released. While open data remains an important route for the publication of government information, we conclude that it is not the only route, and there must be clear and robust public interest arguments in order to justify the disclosure of personal information as open data.

Making Access to Government Data Work

The EU Directive on Re-use of Public Sector Information of 2013 (the PSI Directive) is a key instrument for open data policies at all levels of government in Member States. It sets out a general framework for the conditions governing the right to re-use information resources held by public sector bodies. It includes provisions on non-discrimination, transparent licensing and the like. However, what the PSI Directive does not do is give businesses, civil society or citizens an actual claim to access. Access is of course a prerequisite to (re)use. It is largely a matter for individual Member States to regulate what information is in the public record. This article explores what the options for the EC are to promote alignment of rights to information and re-use policy. It also flags a number of important data protection problems that have not been given serious enough consideration, but have the potential to paralyze open data policies.

Friends or foes? Creative Commons, freedom of information law and the EU Framework for Reuse of Public Sector Information

Innovative scientific research plays a crucial role in addressing global challenges, such as healthcare and environmental and security issues, while research in social sciences and the humanities occupies a key function in understanding emerging social phenomena. The speed and depth of scientific research, understood in its broadest sense, depends on fostering collaborative exchanges between different communities and assuring its widest dissemination. This, in turn, is fundamental for the constant evolution of science and human progress. Access to research output not only increases the returns from public investment in this area, but also reinforces open scientific inquiry. It encourages diversity of opinion, promotes new areas of work and enables the exploration of topics not envisioned by the initial investigators. Collaborative exchanges help avoid the unnecessary duplication of research and address some of the global health inequalities. Timely and cost-efficient access to scientific research, therefore, contributes to increasing general economic and social welfare. More than any other kind of research, publicly funded scientific research constitutes an essential building block for further progress and innovation, one that is often seen as a collective good. For this reason, the common assumption is that, for the greater good of science and the public interest, publicly funded research should be made accessible without restriction. This principle of unfettered access also entails the freedom to use and reuse publicly funded scientific research.Public authorities keep vast amounts of information. Freedom of information (‘FOIA’) laws give the public rights of access to much public sector information. The spread of FOIAs across the globe testifies to their importance as instruments for enhancing democratic accountability. But access to public sector information not only serves political purposes. It is also thought to have economic benefits, enabling the development of new information products and services. This is the policy objective behind the EU Directive 2003/98 on the Re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI Directive).Despite popular belief to the contrary, much public sector information is subject to intellectual property rights. Both access to public sector information for democratic purposes and for economic purposes have implications for how intellectual property rights in information produced by governments are exercised. Rather curiously perhaps, FOIA’s are generally silent on the issue. Nor does the PSI Directive prescribe how public sector bodies should exercise any exlcusive rights in information. This paper explores the role of copyright policy in the light of the objectives and principles of both freedom of information law and the regulatory framework for re-use of public sector information. More specifically, it queries whether open content licenses like Creative Commons are indeed the attractive instrument they appear to be for public sector bodies that seek to enhance transparent access to their information, be it for purposes of democratic accountability or re-use for economic or other uses.Papieren pracht uit de Amsterdamse Gouden Eeuw - 8[-]Woord vooraf - 12[-]Inhoud - 13[-]Dr. Th.J. Steenbergen en het moderne mecenaat - 15[-]Een goudmijn voor de Gouden Eeuw - 19[-]Publieke collecties en particulier initiatief - 21[-]Geestig, amoureus en aandachtig - 24[-]Roeien naar de Volewijck - 32[-]Hoe Cupido Nederlands leerde - 40[-]Nuchtere lessen voor het dagelijks leven - 48[-]Open content licensing : from theory to practice - 2[-]Contents - 6[-]1. Open Content Licensing: From Theory to Practice - An Introduction - 8[-]2. Towards a New Social Contract: Free-Licensing into the Knowledge Commons1 - 22[-]3. Is Open Content a Victim of its Own Success? Some Economic Thoughts on the Standardization of Licenses - 52[-]4. (Re)introducing Formalities in Copyright as a Strategy for the Public Domain - 76[-]5. User-Related Assets and Drawbacks of Open Content Licensing - 108[-]6. Owning the Right to Open Up Access to Scientific Publications - 138[-]7. Friends or Foes? Creative Commons, Freedom of Information Law and the European Union Framework for Reuse of Public Sector Information - 170[-]8. Contributing to Conversational Copyright: Creative Commons Licences and Cultural Heritage Institutions1 - 204[-]9. Creative Commons and Related Rights in Sound Recordings: Are the Two Systems Compatible? - 244