High-value datasets: Questions and Answers

• Certain data produced by the public sector are particularly interesting for creators of value-added services and applications. For example, the re-use of datasets such as mobility or geolocalisation of buildings can open business opportunities for the logistics or transport sectors, as well as improve the efficiency of public service delivery, for example by understanding traffic flows to make transport more efficient.
• Datasets such as meteorological observation data, radar data, air quality and soil contamination and noise level data can also support research and digital innovation as well as better-informed policymaking, especially in the fight against climate change and its impacts; this has a positive impact on the quality of life.
• Research and experience have shown that for public sector information to have a positive impact on the economy, public data should be available by default as widely as possible. However, the persistence of technical, legal and financial barriers lead to a situation in which public sector information in Europe is not used enough, despite the fact that EU policy and legislation has been in place for almost 20 years and sizeable investments have been made at the national level. The Open Data Directive strengthens the existing rules on formats, enabling diverse re-use scenarios, including dynamic data provided in real-time. The Directive addresses exclusive practices restricting the availability of public sector data beyond explicit exclusive arrangements. The new rules let stricter limits to charging, removing prohibitive costs as barrier to re-use.
• To remove these remaining obstacles, the Open Data Directive obliged the European Commission to adopt an Implementing Regulation specifying concrete HVDs. Public sector organisations will have to make those HVDs available free of charge, in machine-readable format, via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and, where relevant, as a bulk download.
• The Open Data Directive defines the HVDs as “documents held by a public sector body, the re-use of which is associated with important benefits for society, the environment and the economy”. HVDs will be re-usable for any purpose (as is the case for any open data).

• The Open Data Directive sets out six categories of HVDs: geospatial, Earth observation and environment, meteorological, statistics, companies and company ownership, and mobility.
• In principle, the list of high-value datasets does not refer to personal data. However, should certain datasets be considered personal data in Member States or if Member States choose to extend the list to personal data, compliance with GDPR needs to be ensured.
• The Open Data Directive allows the Commission to extend this initial thematic range via a Delegated Act if necessary to reflect technological and market developments.

• In order to choose the specific datasets under each of the six categories, the Commission consulted a wide range of stakeholders representing both data holders and users.
• Interviews with stakeholders allowed outlining of a preliminary ‘wish list’ of datasets considered to be of high value (from an economic, societal and re-use perspective).
• In parallel, the Impact Assessment Support Study mapped all relevant legislation at the European level in order to identify data fields already covered by EU rules. The study then assessed the degree to which each dataset could indeed be considered to be of ‘high value’, in line with the assessment criteria enumerated in Article 14(2) of the Open Data Directive.

• HVDs will significantly lower entry barriers to the European data-driven market and increase the volume of datasets reused. This, in turn, will stimulate the generation of new digital services and the improvement of existing services or business processes.
• Better availability of various statistical datasets (labour market, demographics, industrial output) will make it easier to forecast the impact of possible policy measures. In addition, open company data will increase market transparency, enabling a better allocation of private investment or public support.
• A wider availability of information on companies has clear social benefits for areas such as fighting crime (incl. financial crime), increased public engagement and transparency of economic transactions.
• Recent initiatives on stemming the COVID-19 pandemic have also shown the importance of geolocalising hospitals, events and populations.

• HVDs were designed for the benefit of SMEs and start-ups, who often remain shut out from the market as they do not have sufficient human and financial resources to acquire and enhance the quality of public sector data.
• The increased supply of data will boost entrepreneurship and result in the creation of new companies. In addition, HVDs can become an important enabler for start-ups to validate their business cases and attract investors.
• Open data can also empower SMEs, for which data software solutions using public sector data may become their main product or service.
• Finally, the free availability of data will help rebalance the position of SMEs in relation to Big Tech companies, for whom the price of data acquisition is not a significant barrier.

• Public authorities will only need to make available existing data. There will be no obligation on them to start producing new data.
• The public sector will bear the costs linked to the necessary technical upgrade of data publication (via APIs) and will have to stop charging fees for the re-use of HVDs.
• This impact should be attenuated by benefits derived from the better availability and usability of data within the public sector and by the lower administrative burden related to the handling of re-use requests, licensing negotiations and the processing of charges. The Commission also supports public sector bodies with concrete actions under the Digital Europe Programme.
• The HVDs list was drawn up in collaboration with the Member States and was prepared following a thorough Impact Assessment. As such, it only contains data the re-use of which will generate benefits that largely outweigh the costs related to its free provision.

• The re-use of personal data held by a public sector body is allowed under two conditions: the data must be generally accessible[1] to the public and their re-use (i.e. personal data processing) must be carried out in full respect of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes precedence over the provisions of the Open Data Directive.
• The Implementing Regulation on HVDs refers to data that falls within the scope of the Open Data Directive and is therefore subject to the same limitations. The draft list of HVDs as presented in the Impact Assessment generally avoids including personal data in its scope. This choice was intentional, as the wide inclusion of such data would decrease the legal feasibility of the initiative while increasing the costs for public sector bodies that need to ensure compliance with the GDPR.

Public authorities must ensure that all the datasets from the list of HVDs are available from 9 June 2024 under reuse-friendly conditions: free of charge, in machine-readable format, via Application Programming Interfaces and, where relevant, as a bulk download.