The European Union wants governments to do more to make their data available to the public at large, that they then for all kinds of purposes. Also data of the European Union itself will be made available.
That eu Commissioner Neelie Kroes, responsible for the portfolio of the Digital Agenda, announced Monday. The European Commission wants a directive from 2003 to adapt, so that in principle all data that with taxpayers ‘ money to be paid, may be re-usable for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
The general rule should be according to the EU, that information may be re-used, unless there are copyright of third parties on peace. Thanks to the measures must be citizens and organisations of the government in a different way, for example, information about the weather, about energy emissions, or certain statistics.
In addition, authorities of the European Commission not more money than necessary for information requests and information should be provided in standard formats, which by a computer can be processed. That should ensure that citizens, organisations and businesses easier with public sector information to get started. “Taxpayers have already for this information paid for, the least we can do is give back,” says commissioner Kroes.
The European Commission says a good example to go with a private portal, where information from all EU institutions is published that can be freely reused. In addition, there are 100 million euros available for research on data processing to support it. The measures must be an economic boost of 40 billion dollars.