Europe: EU-ombudsman publishes report about access to databases

BRUSSELS - DECEMBER 11th, 2008 - Today the European Ombudsman sent his report about access to databases (doc, 1.03 MB) to the European Parliament and the public. His conclusion is, that the content of databases should be accessible to the public, and he drafted new wording relevant for the reform of the EU wob.

Nikiforos Diamandouros does not look at the question, whether databases are documents or not. Based upon the draft new EU wob by the European Commission he instead suggests a number of changes relating to the draft, emphasising the "new generation" of documents. He also points to the fact, that in modern administration, data stored in external databases can be accessed for administrative purposes and should thus be included in access to documents in the relevant institution.

The Ombudsmand's suggested wording to the draft new EU wob:

On the basis of the above-mentioned considerations and concerns (p. 17-19), the European Ombudsman considers that this proposal could benefit from the following reformulation:

" information contained in electronic storage, processing and retrieval systems (including external systems used for the institution's work) shall constitute a document or documents if it can be extracted in the form of one or more printouts or electronic-format copies using the reasonably available tools for the exploitation of the system."

2. The Ombudsman encourages the EU legislators to adequately adapt the publics access regulation to this positive development initiated by the Commission, by introducing the following or similar changes:

" (...) in the case of printouts or electronic-format documents based on information contained in electronic storage, processing and retrieval systems, the real cost of searching for and retrieving the document or documents may also be charged to the applicant. No additional charge shall be made if the institution has already produced the document or documents concerned. The applicant shall be informed in advance of the amount and method of calculating any charge."

"An institution that intends to create a new electronic storage system, or to change significantly an existing system, shall evaluate the likely impact on the right of access guaranteed by this Regulation and act so as to promote the objective of transparency."

The Ombudsmands report started after a request by wob-editor Brigitte Alfter in 2005.

He initiated the hearing among the other ombudsmen in the EU, and got reports back from the Czech Republic (pdf, 1.04 MB), Denmark (pdf, 67 KB), Estonia (pdf, 1.24 MB) (Estonia (doc, 92 KB)in English translation), France (pdf, 31 KB), Ireland (pdf, 164 KB), Italy (pdf, 155 KB), Lithuania (pdf, 170 KB), (Lithuania English (doc, 37 KB), Lithuania Annex 1 (pdf, 211 KB), 2, (pdf, 907 KB) 3 (pdf, 659 KB), 4 (pdf, 208 KB), 5 (pdf, 68 KB), 6, (pdf, 958 KB) 7 (pdf, 180 KB),) Hungary (pdf, 270 KB), the Netherlands (pdf, 1.15 MB), Romania (pdf, 218 KB), Slovenia (pdf, 164 KB) (Slovenia Annex 1 (pdf, 994 KB), 2 (pdf, 184 KB), 3 (pdf, 517 KB), 4 (pdf, 361 KB), 5 (pdf, 378 KB), 6 (pdf, 812 KB), 7, (pdf, 1.16 MB) 8 (pdf, 780 KB)),  Slovakia (pdf, 1.32 MB), Finland (pdf, 32 KB), Sweden (pdf, 255 KB)and the United Kingdom / Northern Ireland (pdf, 271 KB).