In the course of their daily business, the public Sector creates, collects and transmits a wealth of data and information necessary for the development of their functions. This information can be reused by citizens and businesses, for commercial purposes or not, in order to promote transparency, efficiency, citizen participation and economic development. The digitalization of information provided that this flow and be processed quickly, allowing citizens and businesses to add value to the reusable data (in english, open data) from the public Sector, generating new business, applications and services, allowing the emergence of a new corporate sector: Infomediario sector.
The european commission prepared in 1998 the green paper on public Sector information in the information society, in which attention was drawn to the need to improve synergies between the public and private sectors in the market of information. Just five years later, their proposals inspired directive 2003/98/Ec of the european parliament and of the council of 17 november 2003, on re-use of public sector information, which established a set of minimum standards and homogenous criteria for the treatment of information can be reused by individuals or legal entities.
In Spain was adopted on 4 november 2005, the Plan Avanza to promote technological convergence with europe, which highlighted since its inception to promote the reuse of public sector information between companies and professionals in the Digital content industry. Subsequently, directive 2003/98/ec was moved to the spanish legal order with the law 37/2007 of 16 november, of re-use of public sector information, providing a regulatory framework of this activity for all public administrations in spain. The backbone of this provision was opt-out the reuse of public information, ensuring equal conditions to those who request it.
These principles are that in 2009 encouraged the memorandum on transparency and open government of barack Obama, which led to the creation of the portal data.gov the great world reference in the sector. Simultaneously, Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt boosted in the united Kingdom initiative data.gov.uk .
In 2009 was launched in Spain the Draft Contributes, with the objective of creating the conditions for the development of the market of the reuse of public sector information, as well as to support the administrative units in the technical and organizational measures necessary to publish, in accordance with existing legislation and in the most friendly for reuse, the unrestricted access contained therein. Among its lines of action included the creation and permanent enrichment of the catalogue of Reusable Public Information is located in the portal datos.gob.es that is since then the meeting point of public information can be reused available from different government agencies national, regional and local levels. This portal is linked to the European Portal open database , which collects metadata from public sector information available in the portals of publicly available data from all european countries.
The Draft Contributes part of the measures of awareness-raising and dissemination of the law 37/2007 of 16 november, of re-use of public sector information and were included in the Strategy of the Plan Avanza 2011-2015 2, in line with the Digital Agenda for europe. These measures did the Royal Decree 1495/2011, of 24 october, which develops law 37/2007 of 16 november, on re-use of public sector information, on the field of public sector, in a framework of free competition. The adoption in 2013 of the Digital Agenda in Spain, to implement the objectives of the european Digital Agenda by 2020, continued to promote the initiative datos.gob.es .
With the publication of law 18/2015, of 9 july, amending act 37/2007 of 16 november, was transposed the directive 2013/37/eu, amending the previous directive 2003/98/ec, and which aims to update the reuse of information, taking into account the profound changes that have occurred in terms of the amount of information generated, technological progress for analysis and exploitation, and the increasing awareness of the value of public information and about the re-use as a tool for promoting economic growth, social commitment and transparency.
In 2019 has adopted the directive 2019/1024/EU of the european parliament and the council published in the DOUE on 26 june 2019 in terms of transparency of data on the public sector. It aims to improve the provision of access to real-time dynamic data through appropriate technical means, by increasing the supply of public data valuable for reuse, including those of public enterprises, organizations and research funding organizations that carry out research activities addressing the emergence of new forms of exclusive agreements and the use of exceptions to the principle of marginal cost pricing.
The initiative datos.gob.es is constantly growing, collects initiatives of the state administration, Regional Administrations, Local Administrations and Universities. Took leadership positions in the indicators monitoring carried out by the european commission as a open data initiative prepared and mature .
