In general, Open Data refers to “Information that can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose, as long as it is available (published) under an Open Licence and provided in a convenient, modifiable and machine readable format”. In 2003, the European Union (EU) adopted legislation to foster the re-use of Open Government Data in Member States via the Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive 2003/98/EC.II, whose main objective was to ensure equal treatment of all potential re-users of information released by the public sector body. In 2013, the amendment of the PSI Directive 2013/37/EU.III introduced the general principle that all information accessible under Member State legislation is re-usable. The expected impact of Open Data policies and the development of Data Portals is to drive economic benefits and further transparency. Hereto, several studies have been conducted on different macroeconomic indicators. The European Commission wanted to obtain further evidence of the quantitative impact of re-using Public Data Resources by developing and launching the “European Data Portal” website in November 2015.
Expert: Mario Fendler, Intrasoft International