Open data in Italy, Austria, Estonia, France, Ireland, Romania and Slovenia
4. Areas of disclosure
The open data by default principle does not mean that public entities voluntarily disclose all data.
The information must be open to access, but not all information has to be published without request.
For example, Slovenia requires all public entities to publish on the website a catalogue of public information. Ireland does not define a list of information that has to be published but encourages the publication of all data on the national data portal.
Estonia has a comprehensive definition of public information: information recorded and documented in any manner and on any medium, obtained or created upon the performance of public duties. However, this does not provide an obligation to publish all public information.
Data must be published on public administration websites in Romania, Estonia, Slovenia, France, and Italy. In addition, Romanian and Slovenian legislation requires the publication of data on the national data portal. To avoid excessive fragmentation over thousands of public websites, Italy has also arranged for data to be published in national themed databases which are managed by different branches of the public administration or authorities. The link between these databases and the Italian national data portal is still unclear.
The same risk of dispersal is found in France. For public procurement data, the Directorate General of Public Finance (DGFiP) has proposed that the local authorities automatically “feedback” the essential data to a government department which will then automatically publish this data on the national open data portal.
Ireland requires publication on the national data portal but not on the websites of each public administration.
Although, in Austria, there is no right to information, some data are provided to the public. Cooperation OGD Österreich has implemented a platform where data – provided by cities (Vienna, Linz, Graz, Salzburg) and the Bundeskanzleramt (Chancellor’s Office) – is coordinated and forwarded to the European Data Portal.
Italy and France define by law what is subject to mandatory publication. In Italy, public entities have a general duty to publish data on: the organisation and activity of the public administrations; the use of public resources; the performance offered and the services provided by the public administration; on particular sectors. Conversely, France defines the obligation to publish taking into consideration the size of the public administration, focusing on the practical feasibility of the obligation, which is completely absent in the Italian system.
Every country, except Austria, is subject to the obligation to disclose upon request.The national FOIAs define the exceptions provided to protect legally relevant interests, such as national security, public order, criminal investigations, regular performance of inspection activities and personal data protection. Interestingly, Slovenia and France have the obligation to disclose online upon request, making the information, once requested, publicly available to everybody.
In terms of public procurement, the publication of information on the awarded contracts is guaranteed in all
countries. Estonia, Romania, Italy, and France have specific rules that oblige to publish most or all the administrative acts enacted in a public procurement procedure
(such as contract notices, contract information, names
and CVs of the appointed member of the selection committee, selection committee’s decisions, etc.).
Italy legally defines the publication obligations concerning public procurements, requiring public administrations and contracting authorities to publish on their institutional websites, in the “Transparent Administration” section, “Call for Tender and Contracts” sub-section, the following information:
- contracting authority;
- subject of the invitation to tender;
- list of operators invited to submit tenders;
- winning contractor;
- amount of the award;
- time needed to complete the work, service or supply;
- amount of sums paid;
- all deeds of the contracting authorities/entities, if not considered significant or secret, relating to:
- planning of works, services, and supplies;
- procedures for entrusting public contracts of services, supplies and works, of public design competitions, contests of ideas and concessions, including
those between entities in the public sector framework as indicated in Article 5;
- composition of the selection committee and the curricula of its members.
- transcripts of the financial management of the contracts, once the execution has ended.