FOI and Datasets

 The Protection of Freedoms Bill, currently at the Report stage in the House of Lords, will amend the Freedom of Information Act 2000 so that in the future public authorities will have greater obligations in relation to the release and publication of datasets. However this may also bring an opportunity to raise some much needed revenue. The key points are:

There will be a new duty on public authorities, when releasing datasets, to adhere to any request to do so in electronic form which allows its re-use where reasonably practicable.

• Any dataset containing copyright material (where the authority holds the copyright) must be made available for re-use under a specified licence.

• Publication schemes will in future contain a requirement to publish datasets, which have been requested, as well as any updated versions.

• Such datasets will also have to be published in an electronic form capable of re use and any copyright material must be available for re use in accordance with the terms of a specified licence.

• Public authorities will be able to charge a fee for allowing re use of any datasets containing copyright material.

If you want to know more click here to read Ibrahim Hasan’s detailed article.

FOI Update Workshop  – This and other FOI developments and cases will be discussed in our forthcoming FOI Update workshops in London and Manchester: http://www.actnow.org.uk/courses/Freedom_of_Information

Author: actnowtraining

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