Politics

The official geodata of the Berlin Land Surveying Administration are now available free of charge, Heise reports. The data, such as the automated property register map, topographical official map series, aerial photographs and rectified digital photographs derived from these and information about standard land values, may be used for any commercial or non-commercial purpose according to a notice from Berlin’s Senate Administration for City Development & the Environment. The data can be acquired from the geodata portal.

The previous complex terms of use have been abolished and replaced by new uniform terms of use, which permit commercial and non-commercial use of the data free of charge. Modest charges are levied for the provision of data that can only be made available offline. Fees are still charged for official information and extracts from the land register, as well as for permits and certifications.

“Social topics relevant to the future such as climate, energy, mobility or demography are dependent on geodata. Berlin’s implementation of its open data initiative is being continued with the release of official geodata and an important contribution being made to the continuing opening up of the State,” explains Ephraim Gothe, State Secretary for Urban Development and the Environment.

Mathias Schindler of Wikimedia Deutschland sees the move as a small revolution. “In particular, the (meta)data may be copied, printed out, used in presentations, processed and passed on to third parties, merged with one’s own or others’ data, associated with independent data sets and integrated in internal and external business processes and applications in public and non-public electronic networks – all with a source attribution obligation”, he explains in a blog post.

The Berlin Senate published its open data strategy in February 2012. It set up its open data portal – the first in Germany in April 2012.

The French Prime Minister has just distributed a circular promoting the opening up of public data, according to Le Monde Informatique. This was accompanied by a practical guide to assist public sector organisations in joining in this move.

The “Vade-mecum sur l’ouverture et le partage des données publiques” (= Handbook on opening up and sharing public data) was published on 17th September 2013 by the Prime Minister’s office. Originating from the CIMAP (inter-ministerial committee for public [sector] activity modernisation) meeting of 2nd April 2013, the handbook has the aim of encouraging the public sector to open up their data fully by encouraging it to do so. At just 11 pages, the document is very short. It is also based on a provision in the ethical charter signed by each minister of the present French government upon entering office and which makes provision for opening up the data of each ministry as fully as possible.
It also gives a reminder that open data should be referred to on the data.gouv.fr portal. This portal currently hosts 350,000 files according to the Prime Minister’s office.

After having given a reminder of the issues and objective of opening up public data, the handbook sets out the legal forms for so doing, along with the methods and good practice. It concludes by setting out possible examples of the re-use of open public data.

The Swiss Federal Government launched its open data portal opendata.admin.ch comprising over 1,600 public data sets, including election results, key figures for cantons and local authorities, as well as demographic information and data at the start of the Open Knowledge Conference 2013 in Geneva, the German technology news site Heise reports. The portal will provide a central point of access for the open data portfolio in Switzerland. The website already features the first applications based on the data made available.

Open Data currently ranks fairly high up the Swiss political agenda: last week the National Council called for a master plan for open government from the Swiss Federal Council. The Swiss Federal Council in turn announced the development of a national open data strategy by 2014, which, amongst other things, should clear the way for the repeal of restrictive usage rights, as well as the abolition of fees on public data.