EU Increases Availability Of Publicly Funded Data For Blockchain-Related Projects

Blockchain, News | June 7, 2019 By:

The European Union is making a wealth of data held by the public sector more easily available for reuse as raw material for blockchain- and artificial intelligence-related projects.

The European Council reportedly adopted new rules on open data and the reuse of public-sector data, which are designed to boost the EU data economy, contribute to the development of a data-based society and stimulate growth and the creation of jobs in all sectors of the economy.

“Allowing the re-use of documents held by a public sector body adds value for the benefit of re-users, end users and society in general and in many cases for the benefit of the public sector body itself, by promoting transparency and accountability and by providing feedback from re-users and end users, which allows the public sector body concerned to improve the quality of the information collected and the performance of its tasks,” the council said.

The new directive introduces the concept of high-value datasets, including geospatial, earth observation and environment, meteorological, statistics, companies and company ownership, and mobility, which are to be made available free of charge through an application programming interface (API). The rules will cover publicly funded research data that is already available in public repositories. It will also encourage the dissemination of dynamic data, such as real-time weather or transport data.

“These rules are a real enabler for artificial intelligence and will help Europe to become a world leader in this crucial area,” said Alexandru Petrescu, Romania’s Minister for Communications and the Information Society, President of the Council. “They will bolster the EU digital industry, especially smaller companies and start-ups, which would not otherwise have access to all the data they need to innovate and expand.”