Regulatory Amendments for the Management and Provision of Open Data (GR0015)
Overview
At-a-Glance
Action Plan: Greece Second Action Plan for 2014-2016
Action Plan Cycle: 2014
Status:
Institutions
Lead Institution: Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction
Support Institution(s): NA
Policy Areas
Access to Information, Capacity Building, Open Data, RegulationIRM Review
IRM Report: Greece End-of-Term Report 2014-2016, Greece 2014-2015 Progress Report
Early Results: Marginal
Design i
Verifiable: Yes
Relevant to OGP Values: Yes
Ambition (see definition): High
Implementation i
Description
Implementation of regulatory amendments that will facilitate further provision of open data managed by public bodies. This commitment entails the following 3 interventions:
1. Publication of instructions (based on current legislation) requiring the inclusion of open data dissemination on designing publicly funded IT projects.
2. Publication of licensing framework for public data.
3. Publication of open data dissemination guide (drawing from existing scientific literature and
expertise). Preparation and circulation to the central and local administration of a guide that will describe the obligations, procedures, methodology and technology for publishing open data. The guide will be written in clear and simple language. It will demonstrate the value of open data, the formats for publication and standard methodologies for optimal operational coordination of the process within each public body.
IRM End of Term Status Summary
Commitment 2.2. Regulatory amendments on open data
Implementation of regulatory amendments that will facilitate further provision of open data managed by public bodies. This commitment entails the following 3 interventions:
1. Publication of instructions (based on current legislation) requiring the inclusion of open data dissemination on designing publicly funded IT projects.
2. Publication of licensing framework for public data.
3. Publication of open data dissemination guide (drawing from existing scientific literature and expertise).
Preparation and circulation to the central and local administration of a guide that will describe the obligations, procedures, methodology and technology for publishing open data. The guide will be written in clear and simple language. It will demonstrate the value of open data, the formats for publication and standard methodologies for optimal operational coordination of the process within each public body.
Milestones –Timescales
2.2.1 Publication of open data provision guide (December 2014)
2.2.2 Guidelines for including open data provision on the design of IT projects (June 2015)
2.2.3 Disclosure of open data licensing framework (June 2015)
Editorial Note: Commitments 2.1 and 2.2 were clustered
Responsible institution: Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction
Supporting institution(s): None
Start date: December 2014 End date: June 2015
Commitment Aim:
These commitments aim to introduce a modern legal framework for open data that fulfils European Union Member State requirements. Specifically, they propose to provide concrete guidelines to assist public agencies in their efforts to publish open datasets. These commitments also seek to establish guidelines to ensure that the design of publicly funded projects include provisions for publishing open data. Finally, these commitments aim to provide a licensing framework for open data.
Status
Commitment 2.1 Midterm: Complete
The government fully completed Commitment 2.1 by incorporating Directive 2013/37/EU into Law 4305/14, which also includes regulatory amendments that facilitate provision of open data managed by public bodies.
Commitment 2.2 Midterm: Limited
Overall, Commitment 2.2 saw limited completion by midterm. Greece only substantially implemented the first milestone, 2.2.1, concerning guidelines for an open data provision. The government took no action on the other two milestones for providing open data on the design of IT projects (2.2.2) or the disclosure of the licensing framework (2.2.3).
Commitment 2.2 End of term: Limited
This commitment proposed to publish instructions for the inclusion of open data in publicly funded IT projects, publish a licensing framework for public data, and publish an open data dissemination guide. Instead of addressing these commitments separately, the government incorporated a set of data guidelines from the recently passed 4305/14 law. According to information gathered during the interministerial OGP government group, passage of the Public Data Law 4305/14 covers basic open data licensing issues. Article 7 of Law 4305/14 requires public agencies to publish their data, information and documents and allow further use of these materials. However, at the time of writing (November 2016), there is no distinct licensing framework established by the law, and the government has done little towards producing one. The guidelines in the text of the law only state that in the extraordinary event that a licensing framework is necessary, public agencies are strongly encouraged to adopt an appropriate open licensing scheme that provides rights for further use without technical, financial or geographical restrictions. The Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction issued some guidelines through an open data dissemination guide that state public agencies are encouraged to use open, standardized licenses that conform with the national law on intellectual property and the corresponding regulations concerning licensing. The Openwise IRM research team found no further progress related to providing guidelines for designing publicly funded IT projects using open data as of January 2016.
Did it open government?
Commitment 2.1 Access to information: Major
This commitment attempted to modernise the context for providing public data according to relevant European policies and to introduce a standard framework for licensing public datasets. The completion of this commitment through the incorporation of the European Directive into the Greek legal system serves as a precondition to increase the availability of an ever-growing amount of public information and data. This incorporation created a comprehensive legal framework that enforced the ‘open by default’ principle for public data. Moreover, the new law mandates that guidelines and a framework be issued for permitting license schemes regarding the reuse of public data. Thus, it had a major effect on opening government.[Note 6: Both government and civil society have acknowledged, at a public event during the early steps of the new law, the significance of law 4305/14 for opening data. "Workshop on the implementation of the new Law on Open Data in the Public Sector," F/OSS (20 Nov, 2014), https://ellak.gr/2014/11/imerida-gia-tin-efarmogi-tou-neou-nomou-gia-ta-anichta-dedomena-sto-dimosio-tomea/]
Commitment 2.2 Access to information: Marginal
Prior to this commitment, the systematic release of public datasets (regulatory amendments, guidelines and licensing framework) was rare. Therefore, the expected impact of the commitment was moderate. As a result of the new legal framework, the publication of open data in the central government platform has showed a steady increase during the months following the midterm IRM report. At the end of the implementation period (June 2016), there are now about 122 public agencies that have published over 2,200 datasets.[Note 7: Live updates on the number of agencies and datasets are found on the data.gov.gr homepage, http://data.gov.gr/.] However, these 122 agencies represent a rather small fraction of the total number of public agencies; 4,774 public agencies publish decisions on the Transparency (Diavgeia) Program.[Note 8: Live statistics are found on the Transparency (Diavgeia) Program homepage, http;//diavgeia.gov.gr. ] Further, CSOs raise two issues that point to persisting implementation problems. First, much of the data published at data.gov.gr have low quality in terms of machine readable format.[Note 9: Discussions with Theodoros Karounos, Vice President of Greek Free Open Source Society.] Also, a recent civil society request for specific information from the public administration received a limited government response. [Note 10: “Greece,” Access Info, https://www.access-info.org/decision-making-transparency/greece. ] This reveals the need to produce additional guidelines for clearer interpretation of the access-to-information legislation. For these reasons, and despite the fact that the commitment might achieve greater agency participation in the future, the impact of this policy remains marginal.
Carried forward?
The third Greek NAP does not carry forward Commitments 2.1 and 2.2. However, during a panel discussion at the interministerial OGP team meeting, The Openwise IRM research team found that the Ministry of the Interior is planning to introduce measures that will push more public agencies to provide open datasets.[Note 11: Members of the OGP government team, “Interministerial OGP” (post-meeting interview with the National Point of Contact Nancy Routzouni, Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reconstruction, 31 Aug. 2016).]
The Openwise IRM research team believes that the open data policy should be a continuing effort. The government might build upon these lessons learned. Therefore, IRM research team’s midterm suggestions continue to hold value and are as follows:
• Design training programs targeted at developing open government skills (technical, cultural, and operational) for public sector employees, in cooperation with the National School of Public Administration;
• Identify good practices within organisations that are relatively advanced in releasing their data. Learn what worked well, enhance efforts where appropriate, and disseminate these good practices to other organizations;
• Involve civil society members in implementing an open data law by organising periodic working meetings; organizations such as GFOSS and Vouliwatch have sent letters of interest during the September 2015 election period;
• Consider a quasi-decentralized organization by empowering local administration to define their own concrete goals, pursue local open data policies and open government action plans;
• Devise an agile open source scheme to modernize government IT systems that will produce data in open formats as soon as possible;
• Consider appropriate regulation that will advance the implementation of law 4305/14 by instituting an incentive/disincentive framework.