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Data

Polish Government Commits to Free Licensing: A Victory for Open Knowledge

After nearly three years of advocacy by the Polish Wikimedia community and open knowledge activists, the Polish government has committed to restoring free and open licensing for its digital content. This marks a significant step toward greater transparency and public access to information in Poland.

Committee on Culture and Means of Transmission
CC BY-SA 3.0 PL, Adrian Grycuk, via Wikimedia Commons

The Road to Openness

Until August 2022, all content published on the Gov.PL portal—including text, images, and multimedia from government ministries and agencies—was available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0 PL) license. This allowed for widespread reuse, including within Wikimedia projects. However, without public explanation, in 2022 the government abruptly switched to a restrictive license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL), preventing reuse on Wikimedia platforms and limiting the openness of government information.

In response, civil society organizations in Poland, including Wikimedians, began advocating for the return to free licensing. Wikimedia Europe engaged directly by submitting Freedom of Information Act requests to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Digital Affairs, seeking clarity on the reasons behind the change and urging a policy reversal.

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Hope and IoT Data: An Update on the EU’s Data Act 

Computers at the Stuttgart Computer Museum
Collection of DEC PDPs at the Stuttgart Computer museum. Author: Wolfgang Stief; License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en)

The debate about the proposed Data Act is in full swing. The lead rapporteur for the Data Act, Pilar del Castillo Vera (EPP ES) in the Industry Committee, has published her draft report with proposed amendments. Other MEPs have until 28 October to propose their own changes. While there is some hope that amendments will effectively limit the sui generis database right (SGDR), the provisions for Internet of Things (IoT) data sharing that cement the factual data holders’ strong position currently remain largely unquestioned.

Authors: Aline Blankertz & Dimi Dimitrov

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Data Act: A small step for databases, an even smaller step for the EU

A map of the world with areas dense in Wikidata Items shown bright. 2021. Author: Addshore. License: CC-0

Today, the European Commission has leaked its proposal for a “Data Act”, a piece of legislation that is supposed to include a revision of the Database Directive and the sui generis right for the creators of databases (SGR) it establishes. 

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Data Governance Act: Good Intentions, Bad Definitions

Manuel de la bibliothèque publique, in public domain

The European Commission wants more European data (public, private and personal) to be shared for the purposes of innovation, research and business. It also wants to avoid a system where only a few large platforms control all the data. It thus wants to create mechanisms and tools to get there. That’s commendable! What the Commission  proposes in the Data Governance Act (DGA), though, is at times very unclear.

Here is a breakdown of the European Commission proposals by sector, peppered with our take on some relevant aspects and support for some European Parliament and Council amendments. 

Public Sector Data

DGA creates a mechanism for re-using protected public sector data (e.g. because of privacy rules, statistical confidentiality or IP) . Public sector bodies are to establish secure environments where data can be mined within the institution. Anonymised data could be provided through outside of the institution, if the re-use can’t happen within its infrastructure. 

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