Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilShow full title

CHAPTER III U.K. CONDITIONS FOR RE-USE

Article 5 U.K. Available formats

1. Without prejudice to Chapter V, public sector bodies and public undertakings shall make their documents available in any pre-existing format or language and, where possible and appropriate, by electronic means, in formats that are open, machine-readable, accessible, findable and re-usable, together with their metadata. Both the format and the metadata shall, where possible, comply with formal open standards.

2. Member States shall encourage public sector bodies and public undertakings to produce and make available documents falling within the scope of this Directive in accordance with the principle of ‘open by design and by default’.

3. Paragraph 1 shall not imply an obligation for public sector bodies to create or adapt documents or provide extracts in order to comply with that paragraph where this would involve disproportionate effort, going beyond a simple operation.

4. Public sector bodies shall not be required to continue the production and storage of a certain type of document with a view to the re-use of such documents by a private or public sector organisation.

5. Public sector bodies shall make dynamic data available for re-use immediately after collection, via suitable APIs and, where relevant, as a bulk download.

6. Where making dynamic data available for re-use immediately after collection, as referred to in paragraph 5, would exceed the financial and technical capacities of the public sector body, thereby imposing a disproportionate effort, those dynamic data shall be made available for re-use within a time frame or with temporary technical restrictions that do not unduly impair the exploitation of their economic and social potential.

7. Paragraphs 1 to 6 shall apply to existing documents held by public undertakings which are available for re-use.

8. The high-value datasets, as listed in accordance with Article 14(1) shall be made available for re-use in machine-readable format, via suitable APIs and, where relevant, as a bulk download.

Article 6 U.K. Principles governing charging

1. The re-use of documents shall be free of charge.

However, the recovery of the marginal costs incurred for the reproduction, provision and dissemination of documents as well as for anonymisation of personal data and measures taken to protect commercially confidential information may be allowed.

2. By way of exception, paragraph 1 shall not apply to the following:

(a) public sector bodies that are required to generate revenue to cover a substantial part of their costs relating to the performance of their public tasks;

(b) libraries, including university libraries, museums and archives;

(c) public undertakings.

3. Member States shall publish online a list of the public sector bodies referred to in point (a) of paragraph 2.

4. In the cases referred to in points (a) and (c) of paragraph 2, the total charges shall be calculated in accordance with objective, transparent and verifiable criteria. Such criteria shall be laid down by Member States.

The total income from supplying and allowing the re-use of documents over the appropriate accounting period shall not exceed the cost of their collection, production, reproduction, dissemination and data storage, together with a reasonable return on investment, and — where applicable — the anonymisation of personal data and measures taken to protect commercially confidential information.

Charges shall be calculated in accordance with the applicable accounting principles.

5. Where charges are made by the public sector bodies referred to in point (b) of paragraph 2, the total income from supplying and allowing the re-use of documents over the appropriate accounting period shall not exceed the cost of collection, production, reproduction, dissemination, data storage, preservation and rights clearance and, where applicable, the anonymisation of personal data and measures taken to protect commercially confidential information, together with a reasonable return on investment.

Charges shall be calculated in accordance with the accounting principles applicable to the public sector bodies involved.

6. The re-use of the following shall be free of charge for the user:

(a) subject to Article 14(3), (4) and (5), the high-value datasets, as listed in accordance with paragraph 1 of that Article;

(b) research data referred to in point (c) of Article 1(1).

Article 7 U.K. Transparency

1. In the case of standard charges for the re-use of documents, any applicable conditions and the actual amount of those charges, including the calculation basis for such charges, shall be pre-established and published, through electronic means where possible and appropriate.

2. In the case of charges for the re-use other than those referred to in paragraph 1, the factors that are taken into account in the calculation of those charges shall be indicated at the outset. Upon request, the holder of the documents in question shall also indicate the way in which such charges have been calculated in relation to a specific re-use request.

3. Public sector bodies shall ensure that applicants for re-use of documents are informed of available means of redress relating to decisions or practices affecting them.

Article 8 U.K. Standard licences

1. The re-use of documents shall not be subject to conditions, unless such conditions are objective, proportionate, non-discriminatory and justified on grounds of a public interest objective.

When re-use is subject to conditions, those conditions shall not unnecessarily restrict possibilities for re-use and shall not be used to restrict competition.

2. In Member States where licences are used, Member States shall ensure that standard licences for the re-use of public sector documents, which can be adapted to meet particular licence applications, are available in digital format and can be processed electronically. Member States shall encourage the use of such standard licences.

Article 9 U.K. Practical arrangements

1. Member States shall make practical arrangements facilitating the search for documents available for re-use, such as asset lists of main documents with relevant metadata, accessible where possible and appropriate online and in machine-readable format, and portal sites that are linked to the asset lists. Where possible, Member States shall facilitate the cross-linguistic search for documents, in particular by enabling metadata aggregation at Union level.

Member States shall also encourage public sector bodies to make practical arrangements facilitating the preservation of documents available for re-use.

2. Member States shall, in cooperation with the Commission, continue efforts to simplify access to datasets, in particular by providing a single point of access and by progressively making available suitable datasets held by public sector bodies with regard to the documents to which this Directive applies, as well as to data held by Union institutions, in formats that are accessible, readily findable and re-usable by electronic means.

Article 10 U.K. Research data

1. Member States shall support the availability of research data by adopting national policies and relevant actions aiming at making publicly funded research data openly available (‘open access policies’), following the principle of ‘open by default’ and compatible with the FAIR principles. In that context, concerns relating to intellectual property rights, personal data protection and confidentiality, security and legitimate commercial interests, shall be taken into account in accordance with the principle of ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. Those open access policies shall be addressed to research performing organisations and research funding organisations.

2. Without prejudice to point (c) of Article 1(2), research data shall be re-usable for commercial or non-commercial purposes in accordance with Chapters III and IV, insofar as they are publicly funded and researchers, research performing organisations or research funding organisations have already made them publicly available through an institutional or subject-based repository. In that context, legitimate commercial interests, knowledge transfer activities and pre-existing intellectual property rights shall be taken into account.