Source: http://psimonitor.eu/index.php/en/resources/news?limitstart=0
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 01:02:14+00:00

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This country can be considered as an early adopter of the open data philosophy. Nonetheless, making an access or re-use request does not seem a common practice.
Denmark has a long tradition in terms of access to public sector information. Already in 1866 the country provided a limited right of access to information for parties involved in administrative cases. However, there is no trace of the right of information in the Danish constitution, thus it is regulated by statutory law and by the European Convention of Human Rights. Since the beginning instead there was a clear separation between the re-use framework and the access framework.
As for the access framework, since 1970 the country has a Public Record Act which provided everyone with access to governmental information. The Public Records Act was then improved with Act no. 572 of 19 December 1985.
We have to wait until 2013 to see a new Freedom of Information Act. Act no. 606 of 12 June 2013 was preceded by a long debate, most of the protests regarded the limitation of public access to internal documents regarding political decisions and issues.
As regards the re-use of information framework, Directive 2003/98 on the re-use of PSI was partially implemented by Act on the re-use of public sector information no. 596 of 24 June 2005. The Law was amended by Act no. 551 of 17 June 2008 and the amendment widened the law and included Parliamentary and Court.
The Law currently in force is the Act amending the Act on the re-use of public sector information of 2 June 2014 implementing parts of Directive 2013/37/EU.
Apart from the legal landscape, some initiatives deserve a mention. The first one is the Basic Data Program. Basic Data are a resource that has been produced and gathered throughout the years by the Danish public bodies. They are divided into five categories: Geographic data, Address data, Real Property data, Business Data and Personal Data (CPR). Basic Data are free to use, for everyone – private companies, public institutions and citizens and easily available via the shared distribution platform, the Data Distributor (https://datafordeler.dk), from where it can safely and easily be used – with respect for personal and sensitive information.
The opendata.dk portal is a collaboration between five municipalities in Denmark (Aarhus, Copenhagen, Vejle, Odense and Central Region Denmark) that was established in 2014. The project aims to function as a national platform for Open Data as well as encourage other municipalities to start working and publishing data on the portal.
The Danish National Archives stores and collects original documents of historical value and makes them available to the public. It is interesting to note that in this case access to data is regulated by the Archives Act.
The Library Open Access Repository (LOAR) is an open data repository established in 2016 as a service for storing and providing access to Danish research data.
Surprisingly it is very hard to find references on how to address a re-use or access request to a Danish public sector body; neither specific email addresses or forms to fill on their websites. Also existing Open Data platforms like opendata.dk do not offer support in this regard.
That means one of two things: either all data regarding public sector information are almost freely accessible or making re-use or access requests is not a common practice in Denmark.
Ultimately, if you want to obtain data not yet released by a Danish Public Sector, make a request using our PSI Monitor!
Shortly afterwards, on 2001, the Polish parliament approved the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”). It stated two important concept: the first one is that any information on public matters constitutes public information and the second one is that everyone has the right of access to public information without the need to prove any legal or non-legal interest. However, the FOIA also came up with the principle that public information could be limited due to the need to protect classified information.
The Polish classification regime was first regulated with the the Protection of Classified Information Act dated 1999 but it lacked of clarity and functionality and was heavily reformed with the Protection of Classified Information Act of 5 August 2010.
The right to re-use was introduced for the first time with the 2011’s amendment of the Freedom of Information Act; it contained on chapter 2 a re-elaboration of the contents of Directive 2003/98/EC. In addition, it also provided for the creation of a Central Public Repository where placing public information. The details of the repository were defined with the Regulation of the Council of Ministers regarding the Central Public Information Repository of 2014, which was followed by the publication of the portal dane.gov.pl.
Afterwards, Directive 2013/37/EU was transposed through the adoption of the Act of 25 February 2016 on the re-use of public sector information.
The possibility to make a request for access to information was already foreseen in the first version of the Freedom of Information Act of 2001, but there were no operative guidance on it. With the amendment of 2011, more details have been added indicating, for instance, that the public sector body involved should answer to a request within 20 days. However it is within the Act of 25 February 2016 on the re-use of public sector information that you can find how to formulate a request.
As can be seen, article 21 also includes cases in which the information has already been made available but the conditions for re-use have not been determinated or provided under other access to information laws or the purpose of the re-use is not covered by the terms.
4) has been made available or provided under other acts laying down the rules and procedure for accessing information constituting public sector information.
6) information about the method of providing public sector information, unless it has been made available or provided in a different manner, or about the method of accessing information gathered in an IT system, as referred to in paragraph 2.
The public sector body has 14 days to answer the question; in particular cases the deadline may be extended to a maximum of two months. Articles 23 and 24 specify the available answer options.
3) refuse, by means of a decision, to authorise the re-use of public sector information. Article 23(4) and (6) shall apply.
Then the applicant must then complete some formal steps; he has 14 days to accept the answer by the public sector body or to file a complaint.
In other cases, you need to have an account on ePUAP service, the Polish nationwide platform for communication of citizens and businesses with public sector bodies.
Anyway, If the bureaucratic details of the law seem complicated and you fear to be mistaken, don’t warry there is a good alternative.
The website informacjapubliczna.org has published a complete guide on how to make a request. Together with useful hints, you can find a template for the request, 7 different complaint templates and if all of this would not sufficient you can contact them to have free support.
Don’t forget to add your request also into the PSI Monitor repository, this action would ensure a wider exposure of your request at European level and that might contribute to a successful conclusion of the application.
In the preparatory note of the proposal of the new PSI Directive it is reported that the recast clarifies the relation between Directive 96/9/EC on legal protection of databases and the PSI Directive itself.
Let’see what is the contested subject-matter.
In the context of the legal protection of databases, Directive 96/9/EC introduced a particular protection, the sui generis right.
The sui generis right is attributed to the creator of a database, identified as the person who has made significant investments of money, time and work, regardless of the existence of any requirement of creativity or originality of the work. In this way, the database is protected purely in view of the effort and economic risk involved in collecting the information in it.
This right was originally aimed to protect the investment and to discourage any possible extraction and reuse of the contents of the database. This is obviously not in line with the principles of the PSI Directive.
The two directives seem to go in opposite ways: the PSI Directive promotes the idea to make as much public information available for re-use as possible, whilst the Database Directive is trying to limit and control the re-use of information.
In other words, we are looking at some sort of antinomy, where we have two ideas that are in themselves reasonable but contradictory.
At first glance it may seem a sophisticated subject and of little use to most people, but it is not so, for several reasons.
Firstly, public sector bodies are tempted to leverage this right in order to deny the re-use of data. Here an example.
Secondly, emerging technologies such as IoT, AI and Big Data are creating a number of new scenarios potentially covered by sui generis protection. Let’s think to situations in which sensors and other devices gather data on a distributed infrastructure (i.e. mobility tracking): they may involve significant investments and therefore the sui generis right could be applied. Other big data use-case may require complete data sets from a multitude of databases, this may infringe the sui generis right.
Thirdly, the forensic practice does not suggest legal certainty as regards the interplay between the two directives.
Original 2003/98/EC PSI Directive contained a reference to the database protection in recital 24.
This Directive is without prejudice to Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society ( 1 ) and Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases ( 2 ). It spells out the conditions within which public sector bodies can exercise their intellectual property rights in the internal information market when allowing re-use of documents.
It simply stated that the PSI Directive cannot be used against the Database Directive, but it did not help to solve the question since the contrary remained unclear: does the sui generis right affect the obligations in the PSI Directive?
The new PSI Directive proposal, which once adopted will be named “Open Data and Public Sector Information Directive”, seems to have put an end to the dispute.
5. The right for the maker of a database provided for in Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9/EC shall not be exercised by public sector bodies in order to prevent or restrict the re-use of documents pursuant to this Directive.
This Directive is without prejudice to Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. It spells out the conditions within which public sector bodies can exercise their intellectual property rights in the internal information market when allowing re-use of documents. In particular, where public sector bodies are holders of the right provided for in Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9/EC, they should not exercise it in order to prevent or restrict the re-use of data contained in databases.
However, looking at the compromise text agreed with the European Council on 7 November 2018, the concept seems a bit softened.
The right for the maker of a database provided for in Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9/EC shall not be exercised by public sector bodies in order to prevent or restrict the re-use of documents or to restrict re-use beyond the limits set by pursuant to this Directive.
Whereas in the wording of recital 53 the explicit reference to the Database directive is deleted.
This Directive is without prejudice to Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council. It spells out the conditions within which public sector bodies can exercise their intellectual property rights in the internal information market when allowing re-use of documents. In particular,wWhere public sector bodies are holders of the right provided for in Article 7(1) of Directive 96/9/EC, they should not exercise it that right in order to prevent re-use or to restrict the re-use of data contained in databases existing documents beyond the limits set regulated by this Directive.
Last year the European Commission published a study in support of the evaluation of the Database Directive. Curiously, it was released on 25 April, the same date of the first publication recast of the PSI Directive and maybe it’s not a coincidence.
There is strong evidence that there is no coherence, a clash or no clarity or uncertainty as regards the relationship between the Database Directive or at least the sui generis right and the PSI directives and open access policies. The sui generis right is seen by many as a barrier to innovation and knowledge exchange and thus to economic growth as research and public data cannot be reused either at all (if refusal to license), or less fast or at a greater cost. It makes the EU less competitive than other economies where data research and public is more open.
Then the authors of the study suggest that the removal of the protection of the sui generis right for public bodies including research institutions would be a possibility, but it should be ensured that those which are self-funded and act somewhat as commercial entities are not excluded from the benefit of the sui generis right, as their existence, and with that valuable databases, may be threatened.
The interpretation issues concerning the sui generis right in the context of PSI Directive, will most likely be a thing of the past. The new “Open Data and Public Sector Information Directive” clearly states that the public sector bodies cannot use the sui generis right to prevent or restrict the re-use of documents although the concept was a bit softened in the compromise text agreed with the European Council on 7 November 2018.
As far as the Database Directive is concerned, a recent study in support of the evaluation of the directive suggests deleting the sui generis right with the exclusion of those public sector bodies that rely on this right for their economic survival.

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