Open Data (IT0057)

Background and objectives

As shown by international surveys and indicators (i.e. the Open Data maturity report and the DESI - Digital Economy & Social Index 2019) over the last two years, Italy significantly improved its ranking with regards to open data. However, although many efforts were made to promote the release of open data by administrations, there are still difficulties which affect the possibility to reuse that stock of information. As shown by the European Report on Re-using Open Data (2017), one of the main barriers to achieve the full potential of open data is the mismatch between demand and supply. This includes a lack of knowledge about the phenomenon of open data and the potential of data reuse, the release of datasets typically not driven by potential users and, sometimes, so bad in terms of quality to make reuse too costly for citizens and businesses. Add to that the uneven compliance with European metadata standards – especially for non-geographical data – as well as the non-compliance with data representation standards to integrate and compare them. However, we need to grant everybody access to data, avoiding legal and technological barriers and, thus, facilitate the usability of data themselves

In this scenario, in addition to the need to continue promoting data reuse, it is crucial to pursue synergic actions based on the involvement of both sides: open data demand and open data supply. These actions should focus on the major barriers identified by setting shared rules and, at the same time, encourage the publication of quality open datasets (the values depends on the measured qualitative features) for the contribution they could make in terms of transparency and also for the reuse potential in the business sector.

Commitments

The initiative as a whole has multiple purposes involving both national and regional actors:
Setting measures at national level that – starting from the current context and involving all necessary actors (including the so-called RTDs - Responsabili per la transizione digitale – Coordinators for Digital Transition from the administration side, domain experts and OGP Forum participants from the open data demand side together with businesses) – can lead to:
-adopting a national license or, where useful and applicable, different licenses (i.e. for homogeneous data categories) which can encourage an appropriate and effective data reuse, overcoming the current incompatibility problems resulting from the use of different types of licenses; a special focus will be on major reuse platforms so to facilitate the association of the most appropriate licenses based on the purpose and magnitude of reuse;
-setting common standards for types of data released, involving specifically the relevant administrations in terms of field of expertise and domain, relying on what has already been done in this field (i.e. network ontologies and controlled vocabularies, notwithstanding already existing specific national and European frameworks, like for Geographical Information) and defining quality indicators for open data relying especially on existing ISO standards for data quality, already mentioned in the national Guidelines for enhancing the stock of public information;
-releasing, starting from the specific real and potential demand-driven commitments of administrations, a growing number of high-value open datasets, also from a gender point of view, as well as tools to support their exploitation, including data visualization solutions and documented API (Application Programming Interface – open software interfaces allowing for machine-to-machine interaction).

At regional level, developing joint open data initiatives as a key lever to increase transparency and accountability and foster data reuse, in particular:
-enhancing the quality and quantity of released data in an open format, through the definition of a shared ‘basket’ of 10 useful datasets, also building on existing initiatives;
-enhancing the ability to manage data and the use of data included in the ‘basket’ defined through the availability of APIs;
-promoting the use of open data for accountability and impact assessment processes on public policies as well as for decision-making.

Lead Administration
Department for Public Administration (PCM – DFP) – Elio Gullo

Other administrations involved
• Agency for Digital Italy (AGID), Department Casa Italia (PCM – DCI), Department for Cohesion Policies (PCM – DPCoe - NUVAP), Department for programming and economic policy coordination (PCM – DIPE), Italy’s Statistical Institute (ISTAT), Ministry of Culture (MIBAC), Team for Digital Transformation, Union of Chambers of Commerce (Unioncamere)
• Regions and Autonomous Provinces
• City of Milan

Monitoring contact person from the Open Government Forum
Cittadini Reattivi – Rosy Battaglia

1. Open data

1. Open Data

Completion: Limited

Milestones 1.1 and 1.2 (PCM-DFP, AgID): The self-assessment states that these milestones to create guidelines were not implemented. Article 34 of Legislative Decree 76/2020 [1] called for the development of a National Data Strategy, which would have voided the relevance of any guidelines, was developed during this action plan period. [2]

Milestones 1.3–1.7 (AgID): These were not completed. According to the self-assessment, the implementation of these activities was superseded by similar activities contained in the national ICT Plan 2020–2022. The self-assessment states that while now more datasets are available generally, Milestone 1.7 (publish datasets under this group of activities) was carried over to the ICT Plan 2020–2022. [3]

Milestones 1.8–1.11 (AgID, Digital Team): The self-assessment states that the first activity (identify high-value datasets) was not completed and therefore the rest of the activities were not completed. The self-assessment reports two data models were implemented: the federated, national infrastructure information system (SINFI) and the Public Energy Living Lab – Public Lighting (PELLIP).

Milestones 1.12–1.14 (ISTAT) [4]: A map of risks in Italian municipalities was launched in 2019, before the action plan, but there have not been yearly updates as the website’s latest data is dated 30 June 2018. [5] The self-assessment states that georeferenced and territorial open analysis tools were developed but yet published through an API. It also states that the delayed redesign of datiopen.istat.it has blocked completion in publishing information to improve interoperability. [6] The milestones will be carried over past 2021.

Milestones 1.15 and 1.16 (MIBAC) [7]: The platform for libraries and cultural institutes (Alphabetica.it) has yet to go live as of December 2021, although the platform and its functions were presented in July 2021. [8]

Milestone 1.17 (PCM-DCI): This milestone was not completed as expected. Legislation to establish a national archive of buildings was not implemented. Instead, the PCM-DCI developed a platform with a centralized database describing the interventions to reduce seismic risks.

Milestones 1.18–1.20 (PCM-DIPE): These milestones were completed. The self-assessment reports that over the implementation period, information was made available on new datasets (e.g., COVID-19) [9] and there were multiple promotions including an OGP exchange with the World Bank and South Africa. [10] The self-assessment also reports published updates to the OpenCUP portal. [11]

Milestones 1.21–1.24 (PCM, DPCoE, [12] and NUVAP [13]): The COVID-19 pandemic delayed implementing the milestone on linking open data on public investments, which the self-assessment says will take another two years to complete. Although it is uncertain when the EU Corner section of the website was published or last updated, [14] it is available with information on the 2014–2020 European Structural and Investment Fund cycle and contains links to specific datasets and other useful information for consulting EU data. [15] The self-assessment reports completion of Milestone 1.23 through the publication of various gender related datasets. [16] The ‘School of openCoesione’ operated successfully in Bulgaria, Croatia, Spain, and Greece (as outlined in the milestone), but the pandemic negatively affected its completion in Portugal. [17]

Milestones 1.25–1.33 (PCM, DPCoE, NUVAP, and ANBSC) [18]: The milestone to develop a single platform for confiscated property is expected to be completed after the end of the implementation period. At the end of 2019, PCM-DIPE published information on using the tag for confiscated property in the CUP Index System. [19] The government did not finish integrating the General Inspectorate for Financial Relations with the European Union monitoring protocol to identify confiscated property data in the Single Monitoring System of EU cohesion policies. However, the tags in the CUP system can be accessed through the Single Monitoring System according to the self-assessment. [20] The Ministry of the Interior created a freely accessible confiscated-companies portal (with open data in JSON for Linked Data format) that allows the extraction of information relating to companies confiscated from organized crime. [21] The inclusion of statistics on confiscated property in the National Statistical System was delayed due to COVID-19 according to the self-assessment. The OpenCoesione website contains a section focused on projects funded by cohesion policies to exploit confiscated property which are downloadable in bulk in CVS format. [22] The government and the University of Turin produced the first national report on the transparency of municipal administrations in relation to confiscated property, [23] and the self-assessment has links to three stories about reusing confiscated property data, including one about violence against women. [24] Activities launching co-creation labs in two territories are ongoing after the end of the implementation period. [25]

Milestone 1.34 (Unioncamere): Unioncamere published 823 datasets (seeing over 100,000 downloads according to the self assessment) during the implementation period from 16 regional and local chambers of commerce in Italy. [26] Most datasets are in CSV format, but some are in XLSX and ODS formats. [27]

Milestones 1.35–1.41 (Regional Administrations, City of Milan): The self-assessment reports only the region of Emilia-Romagna as having defined a group of datasets (1.35) as well as trained public officials on promoting and using the datasets (1.38). [28] According to the self-assessment, there was a participatory process for defining datasets (1.36) although there is no evidence of this, and it instead points to a contact form for requesting datasets as part of the participatory process. Evaluation indicators under Milestone 1.37 were not created. The City of Milan launched its open data portal [29] and has developed, but not yet published, a section with indicators and actions taken in 16 areas (such as tourism, culture, participation, housing, transport, etc.). By the end of the implementation period, there was no collaboration with Milan universities to use the data in open data labs but there are agreements due to be signed in September 2021. [30]