topic report 1: belgium

8/3/2019 Topic Report 1: Belgium

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/topic-report-1-belgium 1/18



PSIinBelgium:aslowjourneytowardsopendata?

ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 1 October 2011

TableofContents

TABLEOFCONTENTS....................... ......................... ........................ ......................... .....................3

1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................4

2 LEGALFRAMEWORK.............................................................................................................4

2.1 ACCESSTOGOVERNMENTINFORMATION ..........................................................................................5

2.2 RE-USEOFPSI........................................ ............................................ .........................................6

2.3 OTHERRELEVANTLEGISLATION .......................................................................................................7

2.3.1 INSPIREtransposition....................................................................................................7

2.3.2 Theprocessingofpersonaldata....................................................................................7

2.3.3 Intellectualpropertyrights............................................................................................7

3 GOVERNMENTPOLICYFORTHERE-USEOFPSI.....................................................................8

4 POLITICALSUPPORT..............................................................................................................9

5 EXAMPLESOFPUBLICSECTORBODYRE-USEPRACTICES.....................................................10

5.1 COMPANYREGISTER...................................................................................................................10

5.2 STATISTICALDATA(ADSEI)..........................................................................................................10

5.3 GEOGRAPHICDATA.....................................................................................................................11

5.4 TRANSPORTDATA........................................... ............................................. ...............................12

5.5 CULTUURNET.............................................................................................................................14

5.6 CITYOFGHENT..........................................................................................................................14

6 COMPANIESANDCIVILSOCIETYINITIATIVES....................... ......................... .......................14

7 MEDIAATTENTION.............................................................................................................16

8 CONCLUSIONANDWAYFORWARD......................... ......................... ........................ ...........16





information and re-use of PSI. In addition to these regulations, account should also be

takenofthelegislationontheprotectionofpersonaldata,intellectualpropertyrights,and

some specific regulations regarding particular types of government data (e.g. company

register,cadastre).

2.1 Accesstogovernmentinformation

Accesstodocumentsheldbypublicbodieswasrecognisedasaconstitutionalrightin1993.

Article 32 of the Belgian Constitution gives every citizen the right to access any

administrativedocumentandtoobtainacopyofit,exceptwhenprohibitedbyfederalor

regionallaw.Theconditionsandproceduresforexercisingthisconstitutionalrightwereset

outinseveralpiecesoflegislation:

• Federallawof11April1994relatingtoaccesstogovernmentinformation;

• Federallawof5August2006onpublicaccesstoenvironmentalinformation;

• Ordinance of the Council of the Brussels Region of 30 March 1995 on access

governmentinformation;

• OrdinanceoftheCouncil oftheBrussels Regionof18March 2004on access to

environmentalinformation;

• FlemishDecreeof26March2004relatingtoaccesstogovernmentinformation;

• DecreeoftheWalloonRegionof30March1995relatingtoaccesstogovernment

information.

Whileminordifferencesin theprocedure andthe formulation of theexceptionscan be

foundbetweenthedifferentlegislations,ingeneraltheygiveeveryonetherighttoobtain

accesstodocumentsheldbypublicauthorities,eitherbyobtainingacopyofthedocumentorbyconsultingit.Ifaccesstoaparticulardocumentisrefused,theapplicantcanmakean

appealtoadesignatedadministrativeappealbody,whichcanorderthepublicauthorityto

makethedocumentavailableifitfindstherefusalunjustified.

With the implementation of the PSI directive1, provisions in the federal and Flemish

legislationwere deletedthat prohibited the re-use or redistribution for anycommercial

purposeofdocumentsobtainedundertheaccessregime.However,intheFlemishRegion

thisprovisionhadbeeninterpretedinsuchawaythatpurecommercialredistributionwas

forbidden,butthatthecreationofvalue-addedproductswasstillallowed.Hence,withthe

deletionofthisprovision,thepotentialofre-usewaslimitedratherthanextended.

Whiletheaccesslegislationdoesnotcontainanyotherprovisionsonwhattheusercando

with thedocumentsobtained,the Flemishappealbody interpretsthe Flemishdecreein

suchawaythattheapplicantcanonlystudythecontentofthedocument,butnotusethis

content any further. Such further use is considered as re-use governed by the PSI

regulations.Itisnotclearinhowfartheotherappealbodiesfollowthesamestrategy.

1

Directive2003/98/ECoftheEuropeanParliamentandoftheCouncilof17November2003onthere-useofpublicsectorinformation,OJL245,31December2003,90.





2.2 Re-useofPSI

Asforaccesstogovernmentinformation,boththefederalstateandeachregionhavetheir

ownlegislationtransposingthePSIdirective:

• FederalLawof7March2007andExecutiveDecisionsof29October2007,29April

2008and8May2009;

• DecreeoftheWalloonRegionof14December2006andExecutiveDecisionsof3

June2009;

• DecreeoftheWalloonRegionof14December2006regardingthecompetencesit

exercisesfortheFrenchCommunity

• DecreeoftheFrenchCommunityof25January2007andExecutiveDecisionof15

July2010;

• DecreeoftheGermanCommunityof18December2006;

• Flemish Decree of27 April 2007 and ExecutiveDecisions of19 July 2007 and 8

October2007;

• BrusselsOrdinanceof6March2008.

Toagreatextent,theprovisionsofalltheregulationsmentionedaboveareidentical.All

regulations leave the choice to allow re-use to the public bodies themselves. The only

exception tothis ismade by theFlemish government for documentsheld byministerial

departmentsandsomecentralgovernmentagencies.Thesedocumentsshouldbeavailable

for re-use, under a model licence provided by the communications department of the

MinistryoftheFlemishgovernment.

Twomaindifferencesshouldbenoted.First,onlytheFlemishdecreedoesnotspecificallyaddressthere-useofdocumentsholdingpersonaldata,followingthepointofviewofthe

PSIdirectivethattheprotectionof personal data remainsregulatedby the1995Privacy

directive2 and that the safeguards provided by its rules remain in place. All other

regulationsexpresslylimitthere-useofpersonaldata,andstatethatthiscanbeallowed

onlyifthedataareanonymized(andhencecannotbeconsideredpersonaldataanymore).

ThisgoesfurtherthanisrequiredbythePSIdirective,butaccordingtotheBelgianPrivacy

Commission,noformofre-useunderthePSIdirectivecouldeverbecompliantwiththe

Privacydirective.3However,thisapproachseemstobefar-reachingandtoonlytakeinto

account commercial re-use,without consideringanyotherpossible types of re-use that

mightbelegitimateundertherulesofthePrivacydirective.

Theseconddifferencerelatestothelevelofchargesthatcanbeleviedforthere-useofPSI.

WhileboththeFlemishRegionandtheFrench-speakingCommunityfollowtheprovisions

ofthePSIdirectivewithregardtothere-useofthedocumentsheldbytheirpublicbodies,

2 Directive 95/46/ECof the EuropeanParliamentand ofthe Council of24 October 1995 on the

protectionofindividualswithregardtotheprocessingofpersonaldataandonthefreemovement

ofsuchdata,OfficialJournaloftheEuropeanUnionL,281,31-50.3 Commissie voor de Bescherming van de Persoonlijke Levenssfeer, advies van 8 februari 2006

betreffende het voorontwerp van wet tot omzetting van richtlijn 2003/98 van het Europees

ParlementendeRaadinzakehethergebruikvanoverheidsinformatie,www.privacycommission.be.





fromthefieldofapplicationofthePSIdirectiveunderarticle2).Forpublicservantsofthe

regional authorities, this has been regulated in the official statutes, so that the public

bodiesare therightholdersof theexploitationrightsof thedocuments createdby their

publicservants.

3 Governmentpolicyforthere-useofPSI

The federal government assigned the Dienst Administratieve Vereenvoudiging (Federal

ServiceforAdministrativeSimplification)with theimplementationofthe PSI directive.A

Transparency Committeewas established, with the tasks ofmaking a register of useful

documentsandinformationfromthepublicbodiesandtomakethisregisterandadditional

informationregardingre-useavailabletothepublicviaafederalportalwebsite.5Itisnot

clear whether this Transparency Committee has continued its activities after its last

publishedmeetingminutesofMarch2009.6

However, in its February 2011 newsletter, the Federal Service for Administrative

SimplificationannouncedatimelineforthedeploymentoftheBelgianportalsitelinkingto

datasets available forre-use.7 After a test phaseandapilot phaseduringFebruary and

March,abetaversionoftheportalwaslaunchedinMay/Juneon http://psi.belgium.be.

Theportalholdsaselectionofre-usableinformationfromthefederalpublicbodies,witha

focus on data that are considered interesting for private sector exploitation and value-

adding.Thedataarenotmadeavailablefreeofchargeorunderastandardlicence,but

under theconditions imposedby each data provider. Data themes include international

affairs,defence,economy,taxation,geography,healthandwelfare,justice,environment,

meteorology,mobility,publicadministration,socialsecurity,andemployment.Examplesof

datasets include addresses of Belgian embassies and consulates, company data8,

government property for sale, orthophotographs, historical and topographic maps.

Currently,179datasetsareincluded.

Each dataset is assigned a category and keywords, and the following information is

provided:whatisavailable,whocanuseit,inwhichformatandwithinwhichtimeframes,

what general and/or specific conditions apply to the re-use, who to contact and which

formalitiesandpaymentstofulfil.Alinkisprovidedtothewebsitewherethedatacanbe

found.

Thefederalportalcurrentlydoesnothaveanyplansofincludingdataheldbypublicbodies

under the authority of the regionsor communities. In addition, noneof the regionsor

communitieshaveplannedany furtherinitiativesonthe levelof theentirepublicsector.

Hence,sub-nationaldatasetswillremaindifficulttodiscoverandre-useinthenearfuture.

5Seehttp://www.kafka.be/showpage.php?iPageID=4461&sLangCode=NL.6Seehttp://www.kafka.be/doc/1242206632-2393.pdf .7Seehttp://kanselarij.belgium.be/nl/binaries/NewsLetterPSI_20110224_nl_tcm171-118411.pdf

(currentlyoffline).8Cf.infra.





4 PoliticalsupportRecently,politicalsupportforthere-useofPSIandopendatahasbeengrowinginBelgium.

TheMinisterforEnterpriseVincentVanQuickenborneorganiseda‘Twunch’(Twitterlunch)

inMarch2011onopengov2.0,andhasshownwidesupportfortheopendatainitiatives

currently being started up within the government. In response to to a Parliamentary

QuestioninDecember2010,hestatedthegovernment’swilltolaunchanewgovernment

policyonpromotingopendata.However,thefactthatthegovernmentcurrentlyonlyhas

limitedcompetences(asitiscurrentlyademissionarygovernmentawaitingtheinstitution

of a new government), entails that no new policy initiatives can beundertaken at the

moment.9Alsointhisresponse,VanQuickenbornemadeadistinctionbetweencommercial

useandnon-commercialuse.Hestatedthatwhilethelattershouldbeopenandfreeof

charge,public bodiesshouldnotbepreventedfrom imposing conditionsandchargeson

theformer,inthiswayallowingthepublicbodiestorecoupsomeoftheircosts.

Next, Federal Member of Parliament Peter Dedecker has launched his own website to

gather support for open data and to stimulate the debate on open data at the Belgian

politicallevel.Potentialre-userscansuggestdatasetsthatshouldbeopen,andthestatus

ofavailabilityisfollowedupforeachdataset.10

ThetopicofOpenDataalsoappearedonthepoliticalagendaoftheFlemishgovernmentin

the second half of2010. InDecember 2010, a round table discussionwas organisedby

FlemishMinisterforPublicAdministrationGeertBourgeoison‘opengovernmentandICT’,

with participation from citizens, companies and civil society. This i-Vlaanderen11 round

tableispartofthemulti-yearprogramme VlaandereninActie (FlandersinAction),whichintendstoleadtheFlemishRegiontothetopoftheEuropeanRegionsby2020.Toreach

thisgoal,opendatawasconsideredessentialbyallpartiesattheroundtable.

AlsoinDecember2010,theFlemishgovernmentandahostofEuropeanlocalgovernment

partnerorganisationslaunchedtheCitadelStatement12atanopengovernmentconference

inGhent, inorder tohelp local governmentdeliveron thekey objectivesof theMalmö

Ministerial Declaration.13 The Statement emphasises the role of local government and

encouragesEuropeanandnationaldecisionmakerstostimulatetheimprovementoflocal

egovernment.Intheareaofopendata,acommitmentshouldbeshowntomakingpublic

data open andaccessible, in areas such aspublic service lists, standard information onbusinessesandcitizens,transporttimetables,environmentalandgeographicdata.

14

Insummary,whiletheattentionforthere-useofPSIatthepoliticallevelwaslimited,the

increasinginterestinopendataaroundtheworldhashadaneffectonthepoliticiansand

9Seehttp://www.lachambre.be/doc/CCRI/html/53/ic057x.html .10Seehttp://www.peteropentdata.be/.

11Seehttp://www.i-vlaanderen.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=37

12seehttp://egovstatement.wordpress.com/.

13Seehttp://www.epractice.eu/en/library/299149.14Seehttp://egovstatement.wordpress.com/the-statement/.




ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 1 October 2011 Page

10

policymakers in Belgium. Support for open data is growing, but it is now up to the

politicians, the policymakers and the administration to translate this political will in

concreteinitiativesonopeningupdata,suchaspsi.belgium.be.

Inthenextsection,wewilldescribesomecurrentpracticeswithregardtothere-useofPSI

frompublicbodiesatdifferentlevels.Whilesomeofthesearenotyetfullyreadyforopen

data, others are moving in the direction of making more data available under open

conditions.

5 Examplesofpublicsectorbodyre-use

practices

5.1 Companyregister

The Belgian Company Register (Kruispuntbank voor Ondernemingen) is a database

maintainedbytheFederalPublicServiceEconomythatincludestheidentificationdataofall enterprises in Belgium. These data can be accessed online by the public or can be

boughtinbulkforcommercialre-usepurposes.AnExecutiveDecisionwasadoptedin2008

toenable this commercial re-use15,with thelimitationthat personal data cannotbe re-

used for directmarketing or redistributionpurposes, and that theunique identification

numbersoftheNationalRegistryandtheSocialSecuritySystemcannotbepassedonfor

re-useatall.

InaMinisterialDecisionof2008,theannualfee forreceiving continuousupdatesofthe

databasewassetat100.000euro.Thesehighchargeshaveledtoaverylimitedsuccessof

thismodelforcommercialisation,andtheFederalServiceEconomyiscurrentlyrethinkingitspolicyinordertomovetoamoreopendatapolicy.

5.2 Statisticaldata(ADSEI)

OnthewebsiteofthedepartmentforstatisticsoftheFederalPublicServiceEconomy(the

previous National Institute for Statistics), statistical data are made openly available on

demography, employment, economy, traffic and transport, environment and energy.16

ThesedataareavailableinXLSandPDFformat.CopyrightisclaimedbytheFederalPublic

Service,butnoconditionsareputonthere-useofthedata.

Viathedynamicapplicationbe.STAT17

directqueriescanbemadeinthedatawarehouse.Accesstothedynamicapplicationisgainedviathestatbelwebsite,andtheusercancreate

hisowntables,savethemandexporttheminXLS,PDF,ODS,RTForCSVformat.

15AseparateExecutiveDecisionwasadoptedbythefederalgovernmentpartlybecausethiswas

needed inorder toallow there-useof thepersonal data thatwasincluded in thedatabase (e.g.

companiesnamedaftertheirshareholders).ThishadbeenexcludedbythefederalActonthere-use

ofPSI,soitneededaseparatelegalbasis.16Seehttp://statbel.fgov.be .17Seehttp://economie.fgov.be/nl/statistieken/webinterface/beSTAT_home/.





11

5.3 Geographicdata

In Belgium, the main providers of geographic data include the National Geographic

Institute18, the Cadastre

19, the Meteorological Institute

20, the Flemish Agency for

GeographicInformation21,theBrusselsRegionalInformaticsCentre

22andthePublicService

ofWallonia’s geomatics department

23

. As inmany countries,mostof theseprovidersofgeographic datahavehadapolicy inplace for the re-useof theirdata foranumber of

years. However, most of them are not yet ready to follow the existing trend in the

EuropeanUniontowardsopendata,eitherduetoreluctancetolosecontrolovertheirdata

orbecauseoftheirexistingbusinessmodelsthathavetorelyonthe“sale”oftheirdata.

The National Geographic Institute (NGI) makes a number of online resources, such as

administrativemapsortransportnetworks,availablefreeofchargeforinternal,personal

ornon-commercialuse. The topographicvectorandrasterdatabase, orthophotography,

andtheDigitalTerrainModelareavailablefor internal use, publicationonpaper,digital

publicationinaderivedproduct,publicationontheInternet,educationaluseandscientificuseunder standardised pricing schedules. Two types of licencesexist: a licence for any

internaluse,foralumpsumfee;andanexploitationlicenceforvalueaddedresellers,who

makevalue-addedproductsonthebasisofNGIproducts.

Cadastralandlandregistrydataarecurrentlynotopenlyavailable,andtheAdministration

forPatrimonialDocumentation,whichisresponsiblefortheCadastre,iscurrentlyworking

onageneralpolicyforthere-useofitsgeographicdata.

TheNationalMeteorologicalInstitute(KMI)isamemberofECOMET,theEconomicInterest

Grouping of the National Meteorological Services of the European Economic Area and

followsECOMET’sre-usepolicy.In 2004,theBelgiancompanyMeteoserviceslauncheda

complaint against KMI with the national competition authority, on the basis that the

institute chargedexcessive prices for its data, appliedprice discrimination,andcharged

dumpingpricesonthesecondarymarketofinformationproducts,cross-subsidizingthese

withservicesdeliveredunderthepublictask.However,thecasewasnevertreatedbythe

authority responsible for the investigationof thecase, because itwasnotconsidereda

priority.

TheFlemishAgency forGeographic Information (AGIV)makes geographicdata available

frommany differentdata holdersin theFlemish Region.Whilemost of thedataonthe

website isavailable to third partiesoutside thepublic sector forpersonal useandnon-

commercialre-use,commercialuseisinmostcasesnotregulatedbystandardconditions

andhastobespecificallyrequestedbycontactingAGIV.Currently,theAgencyisworking

onare-usepolicy,togetherwiththeMinistry.Thispolicyshouldallowcommercialre-use

18Seewww.ngi.be.

19Seehttp://fiscus.fgov.be/interfakrednl/Taken/overzicht.htm .

20Seewww.kmi.be.

21Seewww.agiv.be.

22Seehttp://www.cirb.irisnet.be/operationele-departementen/diensten/urbis.23Seehttp://cartographie.wallonie.be.





12

under standardised conditions and with limited formalities. In how far the data will be

availablewithout restrictionsorcharges foranytypeofuse iscurrentlystillunclear.For

somespecificgeographicdatasets,suchasthelargescalereferencedatabase,aseparate

re-usepolicyhasbeenadopted.24

Since1May2009,access totheUrbISdatais freeofchargefornon-commercialuseand

the use is allowed within the limits of a licence, the terms of which are accepted by

downloading the products. Data can be downloaded directly from thewebsite.25 Users

havetoregisterandloginwiththeirelectronicidentitycard.Theusercanusethedataor

products for internal purposes, print out the results and pass on these results to third

parties. Attribution is required. Re-use for commercial purposes has to be requested

separately.

IntheWalloonRegion,dataandservicescanbeaccessedviathegeoportal.26Theycanbe

viewedonline,andtheyareavailableviaonlinedownloadingordeliveryonCD-ROM.There

arefourtypesofuse:useinthecourseofapublictask,usebycontractorsinthecourseof

a publicly procuredactivity, educationaluse, andanyother type of use (commercial or

professional use). A standard licence isavailable for thefirst three categories.27Forthe

other typesofuse, potentialusershave tocontact thedataholdersbecauseno general

licensingframeworkhasbeendevelopedyet.

5.4 Transportdata

One ofthe typesof opendata oftencalledfor istransport data. In Belgium, the public

transport companies have been reluctant to make their data available, but are slowly

adoptingamoreflexibleapproachtomakingtheirdataavailabletodevelopersoutsideof

thepublicsector.

One of the main providers of transport data is the Belgian National Railway Authority

(NMBS).Untilveryrecently,NMBShadarestrictivepolicyformakingitsdataavailablefor

re-use.OneofthemostimportantexamplesofthisisthedisputebetweenNMBSandiRail.

iRailisanon-profitorganisationthatcreatedamobilealternativefortheNMBSwebsite,

providing a simple interface to look up traindeparture times in Belgium.28 It used data

availableviatheNMBSwebsite.InJune2010,NMBSsentaformallettertothefounderof

theiRailwebsite,astudentincomputersciences,askingforimmediatecessationofiRail’s

activities. NMBS stated that its intellectual property rights were being violated. Much

earlier,in2008,thestudenthadactuallyaskedpermissionfromtheNMBStodevelophis

websiteandtooffertheNMBStraindatatoiPhoneusersviathiswebsite.However,until

24Seehttp://www.agiv.be/gis/producten/?artid=1422.

25Seehttp://www.irisbox.irisnet.be/.

26Seehttp://cartographie.wallonie.be.

27http://cartographie.wallonie.be/NewPortailCarto/index.jsp?page=ProfDonnCDRomCadreServicePu

blic&node=34)28Seehttp://npo.irail.be/about.html





13

theformalletterof2010,NMBShadnotrepliedtothis.29

Asafirstreaction,theiRailwebsitewastakenoffline.However,amonthlaterthewebsite

wasrelaunched,afterencouragementfromtheBelgianMinisterforEnterpriseVincentvan

Quickenborne.Inaletterfromitsrepresentinglawyer,iRailcontestedNMBS’sintellectual

property rights on the data, and added that NMBS itself had failed to comply with its

obligations to provide information to its customers and to use new technologies to

facilitatethe provisionof information to itscustomers.iRail therefore asked that NMBS

wouldfacilitateitsmobilewebsitebypublishingtheAPIofitsdatabase.30NMBShasnow

createditsownapplication,ithasdropped thecomplaintagainstiRailandhasstarteda

dialogue with the organisation. In the meantime, iPhone and Android apps are also

availablebasedontheiRailAPI.

While iRail has obtained a lot of media attention, they were not the only ones having

trouble using transportdata.TherehasalsobeenanearlierdisputebetweenNMBSand

Wasabi,themakersofaniPhoneappnamedTreinBelgië(TrainBelgium).InAugust2009,

NMBSandInfrabel(thepublicundertakingthatmanagestherailroadinfrastructure)senta

lettertoAppleaskingtoremovetheTreinBelgiëappfromtheAppStore.Thiswasdonein

September,without anyconsultationwith themakersof theapp, either from NMBS or

Apple.AsintheiRailcase,thecomplaintwasalsobasedonNMBS’sintellectualproperty

rights.Wasabi tried toget theapp back in theApp Store,but itdidnot succeed.31Two

possiblereasonscouldbeindicatedforthelimitedattentionTreinBelgiëreceivedfromthe

media,politicsandactivists.Ontheonehand,opendatahadnotyetreceivedtheattention

ithasgottensincethelaunchof data.gov.ukin2010.Ontheotherhand,TreinBelgiëwas

offeredagainstpaymentunderacommercialmodelintheAppStore,whileiRailwasanon-

profitinitiativesetupbyastudent,withoutanyinitialbusinessmodelbehindit.

ContrarytoNMBS,theBrusselspublictransportauthorityresponsiblefortramsandbuses

(MIVB/STIB) does make its data available for the development of new products or

applications.Datathatcanbeusedincludethestopsandtheirgeolocation,thelinesand

theirgeoroute,andthedetailsandtheoreticaltimetablesforeachstop.32Theuserneeds

tousethemostrecentupdatesofthedata,torespectthegraphiccharterofSTIB,andto

usetheSTIBlogoandslogan.However,nocommercialusecanbemadeofthedata.One

could question whether this last condition is not contrary to the PSI directive, as STIB

alreadyhasanagreementwithGoogletoincludethedatainGoogleTransit.33

29 See http://www.nickdemey.be/2010/06/16/weer-een-gemiste-kans-van-nmbs-irail-be-moet-

stoppen/.30Seehttp://blog.tuinslak.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/S35C-410070513190.pdf .

31 See http://www.iphoneclub.nl/41111/het-verhaal-achter-de-verdwijning-van-trein-

belgie/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=het-verhaal-achter-de-verdwijning-

van-trein-belgie.32http://www.stib.be/data-sharing.html?l=en.

33See http://www.stib.be/last-news.html?l=nl&news_rid=/STIB-MIVB/INTERNET/ACTUS/2010-

02/WEB_Article_1266578091177.xml .





14

TheFlemishbuscompanyDeLijnwillinthefuturestartprovidingdataonbustransportin

FlanderstoiRail.Sofar,onlytheiRailserverswillhaveaccesstotherawdata,butiRailwill

provide support to other developers who want obtain the data from the iRail API.34

Currently,DeLijn isalready teamingup with Googleto providethe busdataonGoogle

Maps.

5.5 Cultuurnet

CultuurnetisaFlemishpublicbodyresponsibleforpromotingculturalactivitiesandevents

inFlanders.IthascreatedUiTnetwerk,anetworkoflocalauthorities,provinces,media,and

otherpartnerswhowanttodrawpeopletotheiractivities.Alleventsarecollectedina

centraldatabasethatcanbeconsultedviatheportal www.uitinvlaanderen.be.Datacanbe

includedmanually or via bulk XML-imports. Partners who want to re-use the data for

publishing cultural agendas (e.g. local authorities, newspapers, broadcasters, ticketing

agencies, multimedia application providers) canmake an agreementwith Cultuurnet to

publishagendascomposedfromthedatabaseonpaperorontheirwebsite.Currently,over240organisationsusethe database fordisseminatingeventdataonline, onpaperorvia

mobileapplications.35

5.6 CityofGhent

TheCityofGhentisthefirstlocalauthorityinBelgiumthathasmadeacommitmentto

open data. On30 April 2011, the mayor ofGhentannounced that the citywould start

makingitsdataavailableviawww.gent.be/open.Whiletheinitiativehasstartedwithdata

that canbe publishedquickly andeasily, thelong-termintention is toopen upall data,

exceptifthereisaseriousreasonnotto.36Thefirstdatasetslaunchedonthewebsitewere

the agendaof theGentse Feesten, theannual ten-daycity festival, andthe locationsof

publictoiletsthroughoutthecity.

In the meantime, the City of Ghent also organised the Apps for Ghent competition,

togetherwiththeresearchnetworkInstituteforBroadbandTechnology(IBBT),andsome

private sectorcompaniesand organisations.Following thesuccessofApps forNewYork

andApps forAmsterdam,the competition inviteddevelopers tocreate newapplications

basedonpublicdata.Availabledataincluded3D-data,roadsandpointsofinterestfrom

thecityofGhent,theculturaldatabasefromCultuurnet,andtimetablesandroutesfrom

the FlemishBusCompanyDe Lijn. During the afternoonof 14May2011, 13apps were

developed based on the available data. The event got extensive media coverage and

increasedtheattentionforopendatafromamoremainstreamaudience.

6 Companiesandcivilsocietyinitiatives

Attentionfromtheprivatesectorandcivilsocietytore-useandopendatahasbeenlimited

34Seehttp://blog.irail.be/.

35Seewww.cultuurnet.be.

36 See http://resultapmaz.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/daniel-termont-en-resul-tapmaz-gent-en-

open-data-%E2%80%99t-zal-wel-zijn/.





15

inBelgiumuntilrecently.Whileanumberofprivatesectorhaveoftencomplainedabout

the lack of impulse for re-use in the Belgian landscape and the reluctant and market-

distortingattitudesofsomepublicbodies,veryfewhaveactuallychallengedthesepublic

bodies’ re-use policy before an administrative appeal body or the competent court. In

addition, the private companies seem not to have found each other in a professional

associationthat defends therightsof re-users. Theonly exception to this isAgoria, the

sector federation of the technological industry in Belgium. The Agoria geo-ICT working

group has been trying for a number of years to convince the public sector of the

importanceofallowingre-usefortheICTandcontentindustry,byorganisingroundtables

andworkshops,andbypreparingpositionpapersandpressreleasesonthetopic.37

Asaseparateevolutionfromtheprivatesector’srequestsformorepossibilitiesforre-use

of PSI, interest in open government data has also been growing. Some initiatives and

organisationshavealreadybeenmentioned,suchasiRailandAppsforGhent,butafew

othersshouldalsobementioned.

• Openbelgium.be38:becausethepromisedBelgianportalforre-usableinformation

took so long to develop (and was publicised very little), the private company

Krimson-DrupalArchitects started up theOpenbelgiumwebsite, in collaboration

with theBelgianopen data community. The initiativehasno connection to any

government bodies. It provides links to rawdata,webservices, and tools at the

national,regionalorlocallevelthatcanbeusedasopendata.Currently,around40

sourcesarelisted.

• TheDataTank39:thecompanyTheDataThankintendstobealargedatasourceon

publishedpublicdataandtobringtogetherdataprovidersanddataconsumers.Itdoesnotwanttolimittheavailabledatatodataheldbypublicbodies,butalso

encouragesotherstosharetheirdata.Thedatabasescanbeaccessedviatheweb

GUIorbyusingthewebserviceAPIthroughanywidgetorconsumerapplication.

• OpenBiz.be40:thedevelopersofOpenBiz.bewanttoprovideanalternativewayto

findpublicrecordsofBelgiancompanies,nexttotheCompanyRegister.Thebeta

versionof theservice allowstheuser to seechangesin shareholders’ structure,

directors,capital andbankruptcy, to check the statusof legalmandates, and to

checkwhichdirectorscanrepresentaparticularcompany.OpenBizwantstobring

togetherinformationthatisspreadoverseveralsources,andtoofferanalternative

for the commercial model of the Company Register, whichonly allows a public

searchbasedonlimitedcriteriaandhasa businessmodelinwhichpaidaccessis

onlydirectedtowardslargecompanieswithalargebudgetforinformation.Thefull

servicewillbelaunchedinthesecondhalfof2011.

37http://www.agoria.be/s/p.exe/WService=WWW/webextra/prg/izContentWeb?ENewsID=65577&T

opicID=5071&TopicList=5071&sessionlid=1;

http://www.evpsi.org/lapsifiles/NL_NewsLetter_PSI_2011.pdf .38Seewww.openbelgium.be.

39Seehttp://thedatatank.com/.40Seehttp://www.openbiz.be/.





16

• Fonds Pascal Decroos41: this non-profit organisation aims to facilitate quality

journalism,a.o.byprovidingfundingforindependentandstartingjournalists.The

organisation is a proponent of open data and promotes its relevance for data

driven journalism. In June2011, it organised a Data Harvestmeeting, gathering

hackers,freedomofinformationactivistsandjournaliststoexchangeexperiences

onworkingwithopengovernmentdata.42

7 Mediaattention

Unlikeinsomeothercountries,particularlytheUnitedKingdom,attentionfromthemedia

toopengovernmentdataandPSIre-usehasbeenlimited.Generally,onlynewschannels

specialised in technology matters or new media have picked up on news stories or

governmenteffortsrelatingtothemakingavailableofgovernmentdata.43Mostjournalists

donotseemtomaketheconnectionbetweenopendataandtheirownneedsforobtaining

datafrompublicbodiesoutsideofthetraditionalcooperationchannelswiththepoliticiansorfreedomofinformationrequests.

ThisbegantochangealittlewiththeiRailcase44andmostlywiththepublicitythathas

beenmadearoundtheAppsforGhentcompetition.Bothinitiativesgatheredinterestfrom

mainstreammedia,butbothcasesweretreatedmostlyasone-offeventsanddidnotspur

onanybroaderordeeperattentionfromthemedia.

8 Conclusionandwayforward

TheBelgianenvironmentforthere-useofPSIhasonlyrecentlystartedtodevelopandhas

notreachedmaturityyet,duetoanumberoffactors.First,re-useandopendatahavenot

beenagovernmentpriorityonanyofthecompetencelevels,andthetranspositionofthe

PSIdirectivewas not followed byan implementationpolicyguiding thepublicbodies in

theireffortstomakePSIavailableforre-use.Eventhoughsomeofthelargerpublicdata

providershaveare-usepolicyinplace,thisisnotthecaseformanyotherpublicbodies.At

thesametime,theprivatesectorcompaniestraditionallyfocusingoncommercialre-useof

PSIandthedeveloperscallingforopengovernmentdatahavenotyet foundeachother,

andarechallengingthepublicsectorfromtwodifferentanglesratherthanjoiningforces.

Inaddition,involvementofcivilsocietyactivistsisstillquitesmallandthemediaisnotyet

interestedinopendataasalong-termtopicofattention.

However,recentdevelopmentsshowanincreasingattentionofpublicbodiestoopendata

andsomenewpromisinginitiatives,suchastheBelgianPSIportal,theCitadelStatement

forlocalgovernmentandtheopendatainitiativeoftheCityofGhent.Thisisalsoaidedby

increasing(thoughstilllimited)politicalsupport.Moreover,linksarebeingmadebetween

the information industry and the open government data community. Combining the

41Seehttp://www.fondspascaldecroos.org/.

42Seehttp://www.fondspascaldecroos.org/inhoud/video/data-harvest-meeting-2011.

43E.g.DataNews(www.datanews.be)andZDNet(www.zdnet.be).44Foranoverviewofthepresscoverageonthiscase,seehttp://npo.irail.be/press.html.





17

discourse of the two groups with an increase in political interest and endorsement of

existingandfuturegoodpracticesshouldstimulatetheBelgianPSIenvironment.However,

thiscannotbedonewithoutmoredialogueandinformationexchange,sothateverybody

(andnotjustthe “usualsuspects”)knowsaboute.g.theexistenceofthePSIportal,the

discussion on the business model of the company register, or the new applications

developedbasedonlocalgovernmentdata.




About the Author

Katleen Janssen (1978) is a postdoctoral researcher in information law at the

Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT at the Faculty of Law at the K.U.Leuven

(Belgium). From August 2009 until January 2010, she worked as a policy advisor for

the Geographic Information Policy Cell of the Ministry of the Flemish Government.

Katleen specialises in access to and use of Public Sector Information, and SDI- andGIS-matters. This includes policies promoting the availability of information and

policies restricting such availability, e.g. privacy protection, intellectual propertyrights, etc. In 2009, Katleen obtained her Phd with a thesis about the legal

framework for the availability of public sector spatial data, mainly dealing with the

relationship between INSPIRE, PSI and access to environmental information. For

more information, see http://www.law.kuleuven.be/icri/people.php.

Copyright information

© 2011 European PSI Platform - This document and all material therein has been

compiled with great care. However, the author, editor and/or publisher and/or any

party within the European PSI Platform or its predecessor projects the ePSIplus

Network project or ePSINet consortium cannot be held liable in any way for the

consequences of using the content of this document and/or any material referenced

therein. This report has been published under the auspices of the European Public

Sector Information Platform.

The report may be reproduced providing acknowledgement is made to the European

Public Sector Information (PSI) Platform. The European Public Sector Information(PSI) Platform is funded under the European Commission eContentplus programme.

topic report 1: belgium

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