The first National Open Data Meeting will take place in Barcelona on 21 November. It is an initiative promoted and co-organised by Barcelona Provincial Council, Government of Aragon and Provincial Council of Castellón, with the aim of identifying and developing specific proposals to promote the reuse of open data.

This first meeting will focus on the role of open data in developing territorial cohesion policies that contribute to overcoming the demographic challenge.

Agenda

The day will begin at 9:00 am and will last until 18:00 pm.

After the opening, which will be given by Marc Verdaguer, Deputy for Innovation, Local Governments and Territorial Cohesion of the Barcelona Provincial Council, there will be a keynote speech, where Carles Ramió, Vice-Rector for Institutional Planning and Evaluation at Pompeu Fabra University, will present the context of the subject.

Then, the event will be divided into four sessions where the following topics will be discussed:

• 10:30 a.m. State of art: lights and some shadows of opening and reusing data.
• 12:30 p.m. What does society need and expect from public administrations' open data portals?
• 15:00. Local commitment to fight against depopulation through open data
• 4:30 p.m. What can Public Administrations do using their data to jointly fight depopulation?

Experts linked to various open data initiatives, public organisations and business associations will participate in the conference. Specifically, the Aporta Initiative will participate in the first session, where the challenges and opportunities of the use of open data will be discussed.

The importance of addressing the demographic challenge

The conference will address how the ageing of the population, the geographical isolation that hinders access to health, administrative and educational centres and the loss of economic activity affect the smaller municipalities, both rural and urban. A situation with great repercussions on the sustainability and supply of the whole country, as well as on the preservation of culture and diversity.

A few months ago, Facebook surprised us all with a name change: it became Meta. This change alludes to the concept of "metaverse" that the brand wants to develop, uniting the real and virtual worlds, connecting people and communities.

Among the initiatives within Meta is Data for Good, which focuses on sharing data while preserving people's privacy. Helene Verbrugghe, Public Policy Manager for Spain and Portugal at Meta spoke to datos.gob.es to tell us more about data sharing and its usefulness for the advancement of the economy and society.

Full interview:

1. What types of data are provided through the Data for Good Initiative?

Meta's Data For Good team offers a range of tools including maps, surveys and data to support our 600 or so partners around the world, ranging from large UN institutions such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization, to local universities in Spain such as the Universitat Poliècnica de Catalunya and the University of Valencia.

To support the international response to COVID-19, data such as those included in our Range of Motion Maps have been used extensively to measure the effectiveness of stay-at-home measures, and in our COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey to understand issues such as reluctance to vaccinate and inform outreach campaigns. Other tools, such as our high-resolution population density maps, have been used to develop rural electrification plans and five-year water and sanitation investments in places such as Rwanda and Zambia. We also have AI-based poverty maps that have helped extend social protection in Togo and an international social connectivity index that has been useful for understanding cross-border trade and financial flows. Finally, we have recently worked to support groups such as the International Federation of the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration in their response to the Ukraine crisis, providing aggregated information on the volumes of people leaving the country and arriving in places such as Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.    

Privacy is built into all our products by default; we aggregate and de-identify information from Meta platforms, and we do not share anyone's personal information.

2. What is the value for citizens and businesses? Why is it important for private companies to share their data?

Decision-making, especially in public policy, requires information that is as accurate as possible. As more people connect and share content online, Meta provides a unique window into the world. The reach of Facebook's platform across billions of people worldwide allows us to help fill key data gaps. For example, Meta is uniquely positioned to understand what people need in the first hours of a disaster or in the public conversation around a health crisis - information that is crucial for decision-making but was previously unavailable or too expensive to collect in time.

For example, to support the response to the crisis in Ukraine, we can provide up-to-date information on population changes in neighbouring countries in near real-time, faster than other estimates. We can also collect data at scale by promoting Facebook surveys such as our COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey, which has been used to better understand how mask-wearing behaviour will affect transmission in 200 countries and territories around the world.  

3. The information shared through Data for Good is anonymised, but what is the process like? How is the security and privacy of user data guaranteed?

Data For Good respects the choices of Facebook users. For example, all Data For Good surveys are completely voluntary. For location data used for Data For Good maps, users can choose whether they want to share that information from their location history settings. 

We also strive to share how we protect privacy by publishing blogs about our methods and approaches. For example, you can read about our differential privacy approach to protecting mobility data used in the response to COVID-19 here.

4. What other challenges have you encountered in setting up an initiative of this kind and how have you overcome them?

When we started Data For Good, the vast majority of our datasets were only available through a licensing agreement, which was a cumbersome process for some partners and unfeasible for many governments. However, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we realised that, in order to operate at scale, we would need to make more of our work publicly available, while incorporating stringent measures, such as differential privacy, to ensure security. In recent years, most of our datasets have been made public on platforms such as the Humanitarian Data Exchange, and through this tool and other APIs, our public tools have been queried more than 55 million times in the past year. We are proud of the move towards open source sharing, which has helped us overcome early difficulties in scaling up and meeting the demand for our data from partners around the world.

5. What are Meta's future plans for Data for Good?

Our goal is to continue to help our partners get the most out of our tools, while continuing to evolve and create new ways to help solve real-world problems. In the past year, we have focused on growing our toolkit to respond to issues such as climate change through initiatives such as our Climate Change Opinion Survey, which will be expanded this year; as well as evolving our knowledge of cross-border population flows, which is proving critical in supporting the response to the crisis in Ukraine.

Spanish universities have numerous quality data that have great economic and social potential. For this reason, for some time now we have been witnessing a data opening movement by universities in our country, with the aim of promoting the use and reuse of the information they generate, as well as improving its transparency, among others.

As a result of this openness movement, open data portals linked to universities have emerged, many of which are federated with datos.gob.es, such as the University of Cantabria, the University of Extremadura or Pablo de Olavide University, although there are many more. There have even been collaborative initiatives such as UniversityDATA, which seeks to promote open data in the higher education sector in a harmonized way. UniversiData currently brings together 6 universities, but its intention is to continue growing and act as a single access point where the different universities can share their data in a simple way. Also noteworthy is the role of the Ministry of Universities, which currently offers thus 1,000 datasets through datos.gob.es.

Between the datasets shared by universities we find administrative data, on the profile of the students or the different academic itineraries, although they also have a relevant role in the publication of the data of their research groups.

But the role of universities in the open data ecosystem goes far beyond mere publishers, but also has a prominent role in promoting the opening of more data and its reuse.

Examples of open data groups linked to universities

The field of data in general, and that of open data in particular, has more and more weight and importance within the university environment, in academic matters but also in the area of ​​dissemination. As a consequence, today we find various examples of groups, chairs or professionals linked to higher education focused on promoting the use and reuse of academic data.

Next, we analyze some groups of open data linked to the field of higher education in our country:

Chair of Transparency and Open Data – Valencian Observatory of Open Data and Transparency

What is it and what is its purpose?

This organization has been created by the Valencian Generalitat and the Polytechnic University of Valencia, through its Higher School of Computer Engineering and the University Master's Degree in Information Management, to carry out activities related to transparency, participation and citizen access to public information in the Valencian Community.

What functions does it carry out?

The chair organizes and develops a series of activities related to the field of transparency and open data that can be classified into three different categories:

• Training activities: The chair collaborates in teaching activities, such as the Official University Master's Degree in Information Management; in the implementation of permanent training programs aimed at officials, local entities and associations; or the creation of scholarships and prizes for the best degree projects in the field of transparency for UPV students.
• Technical, technological and artistic dissemination activities: Through workshops, conferences and conferences, it seeks to promote both the publication and reuse of open data. They also develop work spaces together with the administration's technical staff, computer programmers and public managers.
• Research and development activities: From the chair they work on different lines of research, especially in the field of open data from the web GVAObert of the Generalitat. They also promote innovative technological solutions in terms of transparency, participation and access to public information.

Next steps

In addition to the Datathon, they also plan to hold an international conference with the collaboration of Open Knowledge Foundation, a series of news verification workshops through open data together with Newtral, various dissemination and training sessions with several business federations, or a workshop on open data from a gender perspective. Among his plans is also to create a directory of reusers of the Valencian Community.

Although work is being done on them, these events still do not have an official agenda and calendar.

Cajasiete Chair of Big Data, Open Data and Blockchain, University of La Laguna

What is it and what is its purpose?

The University of La Laguna and Cajasiete create last year the Big Data, Open Data and Blockchain Chair with the purpose of contributing to digital transformation and the development of a competitive economy in the Canary Islands, through research, training and dissemination in fields such as Big Data, Open Data or Blockchain. This Chair has in its Advisory Council a group of representatives of public and private entities of the archipelago, which are key players when it comes to promoting digital transformation and the development of public-private business models in the Canary Islands.

What functions does it carry out?

One of their most outstanding projects has been "Mapa BOB", where they analyzed in detail the situation of the Canarian entities in terms of digitization to take concrete actions that help fulfill their mission. After this analysis, from the chair they have focused on various initiatives with the aim of raising the level of digitization in the archipelago, many of which have been focused on open data:

• BOB Webinars: They have developed online seminars on specific topics to learn about and disseminate good practices in the field of technology and data.
• Meetings of Public Administrations: They have also set up spaces so that different AA.PP. Canary Islands can share experiences on specific issues related to data. In the last face-to-face edition there was a discussion table dedicated to the analysis of open data.
• Projects: Among the projects they have carried out, it stands out “Practical application of open data: update and prediction”. This is a Final Degree Project whose objective was based on defining a quality indicator to, based on open data related to COVID-19, make predictions of the evolution of the accumulated incidence.
• Training courses: Within the field of open data, it has organized different training courses, such as:

- Course on the CKAN platform for the Cabildo de Lanzarote.

- Masterclass on Open Data and Big Data for business students at the University of La Laguna.

- Open Data courses for Public Administrations within the initiative "Elements to modernize the Administration and improve the provision of public services in the current context" of the University of La Laguna.

- Python course, whose final project consisted of analyzing open tourism data on the island of Tenerife.

Next steps

Currently, the BOB Chair is collaborating in the initiative "DIGINNOVA”, a training program to train unemployed people in digitization matters specific to the needs of the islands. With regard to 2022, various dissemination, training and research activities have been planned with which they hope to continue growing and adding value, although at the moment none of them have been officially presented yet.

Hablando en data

What is it and what is its purpose?

It is a dissemination channel aimed at sharing information and knowledge of interest with the community of data scientists. In this space we can find interviews, review concepts, news or events on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. In this case we are not talking about a project linked to a university, but to its professionals. This channel has been created by Abilio Romero Ramos and Ivan Robles Acute, two data scientists with extensive experience in the sector who dedicate part of their professional time to teaching subjects related to the field of data in different master's degrees at higher education centers such as the European University and CEU San Pablo University.

What functions does it carry out?

Their YouTube channel has become the central axis of its dissemination project. Through it they try to approach and explain in an entertaining and simple way various concepts necessary to take advantage of the value that is hidden in the data, especially in those that are available to the public.

On the other hand, in his web page they centralize and collect a multitude of content related to data science. In it we can identify some of the functions that this initiative carries out, such as:

• Divulgation: They have a section dedicated to the dissemination of blogs, websites and channels that have information of interest on this subject.
• Training: On its website we can find a section dedicated to disseminating training materials of interest on data science, either through free books, documentaries or online courses.
• Data science for school: an initiative that tries to bring data to the entire population, especially students. Here they share useful and fun resources to help young people get into the world of data science.

The collaboration that this initiative carries out with SoGoodData, an NGO that helps and supports social projects thanks to the combination of public information and that shared by collaborating companies.

Next steps

The closest future plans for this initiative are to continue disseminating knowledge about data science among its community and to continue taking advantage of the possibilities that this field offers. They will continue to spread the use and reuse of public data, not only from their YouTube channel but also from the masters in which they teach and through initiatives such as SoGoodData.

As we have seen, university entities and their professionals have acquired a relevant role in the open data sector in our country, as publishers, disseminators and reusers, although that is for another article.

Do you know of any other initiative for the dissemination of open data in the university field? Leave us a comment or write us an email at dinamizacion@datos.gob.es and tell us. We will be happy to read you.

The promotion of the Data Economy is one of the priorities of the European Union and of our country. Among the EU's goals is to become a leader in a data-driven society, relying on a digital single market where data is shared freely between member countries. To this end, he launched the European Data Strategy, between whose pillars it's found:

• The development of a governance framework for multisectoral data access and use.
• The promotion of public-private collaboration.
• The empowerment of citizens and companies through training and investment.

As a result of this strategy, work is being done, among other things, on a Data Law (Data Act), continuation of the Proposal for a Regulation on data governance.

With this, the EU estimates that the Data Economy will reach a value of 829,000 million euros in 2025 for the 27 member countries and will employ almost 11 million workers.

The strategic context of Spain to promote the Data Economy 

Aligned with the European framework, the Data Economy is included as one of the main axes of Digital Spain 2025, the plan designed to promote digital transformation in our country. Among other issues, the document addresses the need to make Spain a benchmark in the transformation towards a Data Economy, also taking advantage of the opportunities offered by new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence or cloud services.

One of the measures to achieve these objectives is the start-up of a Data Office, responsible for designing and proposing strategies that promote the sharing, management and use of data throughout all productive sectors of the economy and society, guaranteeing good governance and security.

What are the functions of the Data Office?

Dependent on the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, the Data Office seeks to address the main challenges that exist today in the Data Economy, defining the legal and political frameworks for data sharing and governance. In this sense, toIt covers aspects of technology, standards, good practices, governance, encryption, security and privacy related to various fields of action. These domains, although conceptually separate, are very directly interrelated, and materialized within the concept of data space:

Among other issues, the Data Office is responsible fordesign, coordinate and monitor the "architectural reference model to promote the collection, management and exchange of data". To do this, it is based on the extensive experience already existing in the Administration, optimizing the use of existing resources.

At the head of the Data Office is Alberto Palomo, Chief Data Officer of Spain.

Where to follow the news of the Data Office

Since January, you can follow the news related to the Data Office from the Twitter account data.gob.es - Data Office. It offers news and trends related to innovation based on data and open data: news, information about events, use cases, guides and reports, etc.

In addition, from datos.gob.es we will continue to report news and expand content related to the Data Economy.

As our lives become more and more digitized, activities as face-to-face as “tourism” are also being pushed towards a transformation as profound as that of other sectors and activities. In this digitization process, both the data and the technologies associated with artificial intelligence are essential and this was highlighted, for example, by the 2020 European Tourism Convention.

The importance of tourism for the Spanish economy is enormous (12.4% of GDP and 12.7% of employment in 2019). The number of visitors we receive in our country, even despite the break caused by the pandemic, is still among the highest in the world. Therefore, in all the strategies and plans that are developed in our country, the weight of the tourism industry is reflected. For example, with the deployment of the Spanish Hub of Gaia-X, whose objective is to make it easier for sectorial industries of all sizes to create community and promote innovation based on data and Artificial Intelligence, Spain aspires to become the first country to lead a data space in the tourism industry. Bearing in mind that the hubs must facilitate and support the creation of European data spaces and are representatives of the regional economy, significant efforts will be made in Spain to develop data spaces that are relevant or specific to the Spanish economy, as is the case of the tourism industry.

As visitors or tourists we all have the expectation of enjoying an increasingly personalized experience, not only during the pre-planning process, but also during the time we are traveling or carrying out the activity. In this sense, open data plays a central role, both to help us select activities or attractions and to obtain relevant recommendations in real time that help us enjoy the experience more. For this reason, a multitude of cities and regions have been betting on publishing data sets and, in some cases, applications specifically aimed at visitors. Serve as an example the almost 3,000 data sets that can be found in the tourism category of the datos.gob.es portal, and which come both from the state administration and from different local and regional administrations.

Construction of aggregate datasets

However, as in other sectors of activity, to develop more sophisticated use cases related to tourism, taking advantage of the advanced use of data and artificial intelligence, data sets that transcend local spheres are necessary. Open data on tourism, as it happens in other domains, is distributed through different websites and in different formats or data structures. In this sense, there are some examples of transnational projects such as Tourpedia what prentend to build and maintain open data sets of high potential value for the development of new use cases and that are now only within the reach of large tour operators.

The case of Tourpedia, although it has not reached its full potential, is frequently cited and has been the subject of some scientific articles such as “Open data for tourism: the case of Tourpedia”, where the high impact of creating useful aggregate data sets for tourism is highlighted.

DataTourisme currently covers 96 French departments in 14 regions different that have published as open data more than 385,000 points of interest and events. For the aggregation and publication of data, the portal is committed to using linked data and proposes the DataTourism ontology.

In Spain we have Dataestur, a Segittur initiative that contains a selection of the most relevant data on tourism in Spain. The data added in Dataestur come from sources as diverse as INE, Renfe or Segittur itself and are grouped into five categories for download, consultation and study. It also highlights the fact of publishing an API for developers and reusers with a set of methods that allow automating the download of a large part of the portal's data.

Recommender systems

At present, there are not too many aggregate data sets on tourism and much less those published as linked open data, but there is abundant scientific literature that supports this line of action. In this sense, a meta-analysis of 126 scientific articles, selected for their impact, concludes that the use of linked open data to address location-based recommendation and react in real time to the needs of tourists is widespread in the field of tourism.

One of these scientific articles, a 2020 investigation demonstrates that combining a user's location with open data on TripAdvisor ratings, destination closing time, or traffic can greatly increase the quality and accuracy of recommendations. In total, we find six types of jobs, classified according to the use case they focus on:

• Independent Point Location Recommendations. Recommend to the user a point of interest around the current location based on their own preferences.
• Travel route recommendations. Provide the user with the recommended route and travel itinerary.
• Recommendations based on GPS track. They provide recommendations based on past behavior and travel patterns recorded in the form of GPS tracks.
• Recommendations based on geotagged media data. They generate recommendations based on the extraction of multimedia data from texts or photos to discover places, context information and user profiles.
• Recommendations based on ontologies. They collect datasets and create tourism ontologies for the different recommended purposes, such as a list of points of interest, popularity of locations, travel itinerary and route planning.
• Location-based friend recommendations. They aim to use the user's social connections to recommend places based on the preferences of friends.

It seems that we are beginning to see what could be a second great wave of innovation when it comes to the use of data in the tourism industry. Thanks to the generation of aggregate data sets, the use of linked data and the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, increasingly sophisticated use cases are being generated for the benefit of the tourist experience and the promotion and discovery of destinations Undoubtedly, the new initiatives that have arisen through the national digitization plans and the support of European funds will accelerate the adoption of many innovations that at the moment we see only in the scientific literature.

Content prepared by Jose Luis Marín, Senior Consultant in Data, Strategy, Innovation & Digitalization.

The contents and points of view reflected in this publication are the sole responsibility of its author.

2011 was the year in which the Open Data Portal of the Balearic Government was launched, which makes it one of the longest-lived in our country. This portal is focused on the publication of public data of the Govern de les Illes Balears (GOIB) and its instrumental sector, without ruling out future opening options with other administrations such as the island councils and municipalities of the islands.

It currently has almost 350 datasets in its catalog, belonging to various thematic categories. The categories that stand out are tourism, transport, health, environment, public sector and urban planning and infrastructure data.

Clearly defined objectives

The regulatory framework of Open Data in the Balearic Islands is the Law 4/2011, of March 31, on good administration and good governance of the Balearic Islands. For its part, the management of the Open Data Portal and its Catalog depends on the Open Data Team that belongs to the Directorate General of Modernization and Digital Administration, who is also responsible for carrying out the GOIB's open data strategy.

Since its inception, the portal has been increasing its number of datasets, and continues to work to identify information of interest to citizens that can be shared openly. Specifically, its short-term objectives are:

1. Analyze which of its data are susceptible to be opened and published in the GOIB Open Data Catalog.
2. To open and publish in the GOIB Open Data Catalog the public data managed by the applications of the Government.
3. To automate this data opening through the implementation, in each application, of public REST APIs.
4. Designate a person in charge of cataloging and publishing data in each GOIB department.
5. Define high-value datasets with publication priority.
6. To ensure the quality of open data.

Among its objectives is also the promotion of the use and exploitation of open data.

Data that is reused to generate social good

As of today, the portal shows, as an example, 13 cases of reuse of its open data: 9 of these cases are from the GOIB itself - such as this COVID-19 data viewer or this visualization that shows the debt per inhabitant - and 4 are from private companies - such as the Maritium website, with information on the state of the sea or Tourism and Leisure Mallorca-.

The impact of the portal's data is monitored and shown through various indicators in the portal's dashboard. Among the most used datasets are: 

1. Tourist accommodations in Mallorca  
2. Tourist Housing in Mallorca  
3. Data COVID-19 Confirmed Cases by municipalities of the Balearic Islands  
4. COVID-19 Positivized Laboratory Data of the Balearic Islands

The first two are also among the most downloaded, along with semiautomatic defibrillators (DESA) and Pharmaceutical Alerts of 2018. 

To continue promoting the use of this data, from the GOIB they have launched various actions, among which are:

• Training. Training is a key pillar to promote knowledge on open data and its reuse. In this sense, the GOIB has promoted, through the Balearic School of Public Administration (EBAP), a course on electronic administration tools. Among the topics covered in this course are open data and the Open Data Portal of the GOIB. 
• Dissemination. Also important are the dissemination actions through events and conferences, such as the Jornades d'Administració Digital that were held before the pandemic. The GOIB's Open Data Portal and Catalog were presented, in addition to the openness work that had been carried out so far. 

Next steps: new agreements and tools

The GOIB tells us that their intention is to continue working on the open data strategy, setting new agreements and collaboration protocols, as well as implementing tools to facilitate the management, publication and use of data. Some of the actions to be carried out are:

1. Implementation of an ETL tool to extract data from different information sources and have greater flexibility in transforming those data before publishing in the Open Data Catalog. 
2. Define a technical open data commission to promote the opening of data in each GOIB department. 
3. Elaboration of a new Government Agreement that consolidates and reinforces this openness. 
4. Sign a collaboration protocol with associations of the infomediary sector. 
5. Subscription of the GOIB to the International Open Data Charter. 
6. Implementation of a Power BI tool that allows internally to graphically exploit the data published in the Open Data Catalog.

All this demonstrates the GOIB's commitment to open data and the promotion of access to information, citizen participation and reuse of public data.

The collaborative project Ciudades Abiertas organize a workshop cycle to disseminate the results obtained throughout the execution of this project. Throughout the project, various tools and solutions have been developed that are to be made known so that other regions can implement them.

What is Ciudades Abiertas?

Ciudades Abiertas is a collaborative project led by four municipalities (A Coruña, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela and Zaragoza) in collaboration with Red.es.

Its main objective is to offer city councils technological tools that allow the development of new reusable initiatives by other organizations. In this way, they seek to facilitate interoperability between administrations, the publication of open data, transparency and the participation of citizens.

Among its lines of action is the promotion of open data. The project provides the technical and conceptual means necessary for the “management of shared unique data, open by default, georeferenced and semantically annotated by the city”. It also offers a vocabularies catalog and common and open data structures on Github for free use. You can learn more about their performances at this article and on their own Web page.

Who are the workshops aimed at?

The workshops are aimed both at representatives of different organizations and at all citizens interested in attending.

In the case of organizations, they will be provided with the necessary information so that they can implement the solutions in their own initiatives.

When will the cycle of workshops be held?

The cycle organized by Open Cities consists of 6 workshops that will be held throughout the month of October, the first beginning on the 6th. All of them will be held virtually. To be able to attend, it is essential to make a prior registration individually in each of the workshops in which you want to participate.

In the first workshop there will be a presentation of the project and the lines of action carried out within it. The rest of the workshops will address specific aspects, linked to the different lines of action.

Next, we show you the complete calendar of workshops:

Workshop 1: Open Cities, a boost for open government policies

Date: 10/06/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 2: Standardization in access to open data

Date: 10/07/2021

Hour: 16:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 3: Vocabularies, a key element of interoperability

Date: 10/14/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 4: Development of visualizations on open data

Date: 10/19/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 5: Transparency from the perspective of open data

Date: 10/21/2021

Hour: 16:00

Duration: 2h

Workshop 6: Methodology for the implementation of participatory processes in cities

Date: 10/27/2021

Hour: 10:00

Duration: 2h

If you need more information about the cycle organized by Ciudades Abiertas or about the project, you can contact the organization through the email address contacto@ciudadesabiertas.es

The heat subsides, the students return to their classes and little by little we are recovering the routine. The end of summer is here, and as always when a season ends, at datos.gob.es it is time to review the news that has occurred in the open data ecosystem in recent months. We show you some examples.

The development of the Digital Agenda continues

In July the incorporation of Alberto Palomo Lozano, the new Chief Data Officer (CDO) of Spain, was announced. He will be in charge of the Data Office, dependent on the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence. Its objective is to define a national strategy that responds to the main challenges of the data economy.

In addition, state projects related to the Digital Agenda of our country and the data were presented:

• The national hub of GAIA-X, promoted by the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence to deploy the data economy and bet on the leadership of data spaces in strategic sectors, such as tourism and health. The presentation act was held in parallel to the opening of a interest manifestation so that industry industries had the opportunity to help define and adhere to this data sharing ecosystem.
• The Digital Bill of Rights, a set of principles and rights to guide future regulatory projects and the development of public policies, guaranteeing the rights of citizens in the digital sphere. The document establishes some provisions where the prominence of data is unquestionable.

Promotion of open government and public-private partnerships

In these months the Government of Navarra has approved its I Open Government Plan 2021-2023. Its commitments include a strategy of empowerment, interoperability and federation between open data platforms.

Public-private collaborations are also growing to promote open data. Let's look at several examples:

• The Alcobendas City Council has created a Open Data Advisory Council that brings together managers and technicians of the administration, as well as representatives of civil society. It is an advisory body that will promote the publication of new data and its use.
• The Valencian Government has renewed the collaboration with the University of Valencia to contribute to the development and operation of the PAGODA Chair of Open Government, Participation and Open Data.
• Asedie and the Generalitat de Catalunya have signed a General Action Protocol on open data to advance in the opening of databases and promote their reuse.
• The University of Huelva becomes the sixth Spanish university to join the UniversiData initiative, a project where Spanish universities collaborate with the company Dimetrical. This project offers open data linked to higher education in Spain in a homogenized way, facilitating its use and value.

Solutions based on new technologies and data

Various organizations and companies have announced innovative projects in recent months, many of them linked to the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies or advanced data analysis:

• The Open Data Barcelona Initiative presented the digital tool Dades x Comerç, designed to strengthen neighborhood commerce through the use of open data.
• Zaragoza buses will incorporate Navilens, an accessible digital system that uses the open data of the city portal. It will help blind people to locate stops and receive information in audio format about the times and incidents of the service.
• The Quart de Poblet municipality will have a App based on artificial intelligence that will show free parking spaces based on open data. This initiative will help decongest traffic and reduce CO2
• The Minsait company will manage AI Lab Granada, an artificial intelligence center to help companies gain competitiveness by promoting 'data driven' models.
• The Andalusian Public Health System implement an advanced analytics solution based on big data, with the support of Red.es. It will allow the exploitation of data from different sources to improve the quality of life of chronic patients.
• The National Geographic Information Center incorporates maps of terrain deformations with data from the Island of Tenerife from the Copernicus 'Sentinel-1' radar observation system. The goal is to monitor volcanic activity.
• Within the framework of the OpenKnowledge project, new computing algorithms to identify, capture and extract valuable information from the open data catalogs of the Valencian Community, Spain and the European Union.

Boosting reuse through competitions and contests

One way to promote reuse is through competitions aimed at entrepreneurs and companies:

• We started the summer with the final of III Challenge Contributes, aimed at promoting the use of open data as a basis for solutions that generate improvements in the education sector. On July 8 we met the winners: UniversiData-Lab, MIP Project and EducaWood they won the first, second and third prize respectively. You can watch the summary videos of the final and the awards, as well as the photos.
• At the end of spring they also met the winners of Datathon2021 from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV). 'Tourist Rate Predictor', 'Management of hospital beds for covid-19 patients' and 'Ecological production' are the names of the winning projects in the 3 categories of health, agriculture and tourism.
• EduCaixaChallenge 2021 awarded the students of a public center in Pozuelo, which verified the relationship between the incidence of the pandemic and per capita income.

What's new in open data platforms

Platforms of open data have not stopped in summer either, incorporating new features. Let's look at some examples, ranging from the launch of new portals or the incorporation of new functionalities or datasets:

• The Terrasa town hall and the Consell of Ibiza they have launched new open data portals. In addition, the Burgos city council announced that it will renew the design and structure of its municipal website, with a new open data platform.
•  The GVA Oberta transparency portal presented some news related to open data, including a section on data visualizations and new datasets on education.
• At the end of June the project ended CrossForest, aimed at publishing and combining open and linked data sets of forest inventories and maps, in order to to promote models that facilitate the management and protection of forests.
• ISTAC incorporates the 'Collections' section to your portal. In it, it groups together data sets and related services by subject.
• The Junta de Castilla y León has made available to citizens geolocated job offers on the map of the Autonomous Community. The objective is improve accessibility for citizens to this content easily and quickly. They have also renewed the map viewer of its cartographic portal adding new functionalities such as the search for layers in open data or the measurement of areas or distances. It should be noted that the Board has also launched a newsletter related to open data that you can subscribe to here.

In addition, the Cantabrian Institute of Statistics (ICANE) has been incorporated into the National Open Data Catalog. From now on you can access the statistical information of the Autonomous Community in reusable formats from our portal.

It should be noted that not only public organizations open more and more data, but also private companies are jumping on the open data bandwagon. This is the case of Sanitas with space FutureHealth, destined to share knowledge, data and advances in health through new technologies.

Initiatives to boost knowledge related to data

Various organizations are also promoting data-related capabilities through various guides and courses, aimed at both publishers and reusers:

• The Generalitat de Catalunya has published the “Implementation guide for the homogenization of the metadata of the open data catalog”, With criteria and standards to unify the publication of open data in the region. Aimed at those responsible for open data in the different departments, it is also available at English.
• The Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing Service of the University of Girona launched the EduSat website under the motto 'Become explorers and observe the Earth from space!'. This educational resource aims to bring remote sensing to the non-specialized public as well as offering support material to teachers, students and researchers at all educational levels.
• The 7th edition of the "Dictionary of concepts and terms of Electronic Administration" Among others, include definitions related to open data that may be of interest to you.
• Two professors from the University of Oviedo have published astudy where they collect some online graphic visualization tools for open budget data for public administrations.

Other news of interest in Europe

• At the European level, EU Datathon 2021, organized by the Publications Office and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, announced its finalists. Among them is a Spanish team, CleanSpot, with a solution to promote awareness and encouragement of recycling through gamification. The winners will be known on November 25, 2021, within the framework of the EU Open Data Days, the first Open Data Days of the European Union, which can be followed online.

• The European Molecular Biology Laboratory published data on 20,000 proteins, thanks to the use of Artificial Intelligence. The database is freely accessible.
• NASA and ESA have formed a strategic partnership to observe the Earth and climate change. One of its objectives is to collaborate in an open data policy that promotes the exchange of information in the scientific community and for the general public.

All these examples - which are just a sample - prove that we are facing a solid ecosystem of open data that does not rest even in summer. We will see what autumn brings us, a season that will come loaded with new events, such as the Esri Spain conference , the International Congress on open data and reuse of public sector information, the VI International Congress on Transparency, or those already mentioned EU Open Data Days, among others.

Do you know other examples of projects related to open data? Leave us a comment or write to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

Just a few days ago has been officially presented the Digital Charter of Rights. It is an initiative that has had a wide representation of civil society since, on the one hand, a wide and diverse work team has been in charge of its drafting and, on the other, during the procedure of its preparation a public participation procedure so that the appropriate proposals and observations could be made from civil society.

What is the value of the charter?

In recent years, important advances have been made in Spain in regulating the use of technology in various fields. This has happened, for example, with the use of electronic means by Public Administrations, the protection of personal data, electronic trust services, the digital transformation of the financial sector or, without being exhaustive, the conditions for remote work. Numerous regulatory initiatives have also been promoted by the European Union in which the use of data plays a very relevant role. Among them are theDirective (EU) 2019/770 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of May 20, 2019, relating to certain aspects of the contracts for the supply of digital content and services, and the Directive 1024/2019, on open data and reuse of public sector information. Even, in the immediate future, the approval of two European regulations on data governance and Artificial intelligence, projects directly related to EU Digital Strategy which is promoted by the European Commission.

Given this panorama of intense normative production, it could be considered to what extent a new initiative such as the one represented by this Charter. In the first place, it must be emphasized that, unlike those previously mentioned, the Charter is not a legal norm in the strict sense, that is, it does not add new obligations and, therefore, its provisions lack normative value. In fact, as expressly stated in it, its objective is not "to discover digital rights by pretending that they are something different from the fundamental rights already recognized or that new technologies and the digital ecosystem are erected by definition as a source of new rights" but, rather, "outline the most relevant in the environment and digital spaces or describe the instrumental or auxiliary rights of the former."

Beyond the non-existent legal scope of its content, the Charter aims to highlight the impact and consequences that digital scenarios pose for the effectiveness of rights and freedoms, thus suggesting some guidelines in the face of the new challenges that said technological context poses for the interpretation and application of rights today, but also in their more immediate future evolution, which can already be predicted. Taking into account these claims, the call for regulatory compliance from the design in digital environments acquires singular relevance (section I.4),

What is the prominence that the Charter has given to data?

With regard to the digital rights of citizens in their relations with Public Administrations, in Section 3 (Rights of participation and conformation of the public space) some provisions have been established where the protagonism of the data is unquestionable (Section XVIII) :

• Thus, it is established that the principle of transparency and reuse of public sector data will guide the actions of the digital Administration, although its scope is conditioned by what the applicable regulations establish. In any case, this principle is reinforced with the promotion of publicity and accountability. Likewise, the portability of the data and the interoperability of the formats, systems and applications will be ensured, in the terms provided by the current legal system. Specifically (Section 5, Section XXI), the use for the common good of personal and non-personal data, whether they come from the public or private sector, is recognized, including among the purposes the archive in the public interest, research, statistics , as well as innovation and development. In this sense,
• The importance of transparency about the use of artificial intelligence instruments is also emphasized, in particular, about the data used, its margin of error, its scope of application and its decision-making or non-decision-making nature. Beyond its incidence in the public sector, non-discrimination regarding the use of data is generally prohibited (Section 5, Section XXV), and adequate conditions of transparency, auditability, explicability, traceability, supervision must be established. human rights and governance.
• Likewise, the need to carry out an impact assessment on digital rights is established when designing algorithms in the case of automated or semi-automated decision-making. It therefore seems inexcusable that such an evaluation pays special attention to the biases that may occur with regard to the data used and the treatment that may be carried out in the decision-making process. Impact assessment from the perspective of ethical principles and rights related to artificial intelligence is also specifically contemplated for the workplace (Section 4, Section XIX), with special attention to eventual discrimination and conciliation rights.
• Singular importance is given to the need for the Administrations to offer an understandable motivation in natural language for the decisions they adopt using digital means, having to justify especially what criteria for applying the standards have been used and, therefore, the data that have been used. been able to handle to that effect.
• With regard specifically to the health system (Section 5, Section XXIII), on the one hand, it is required to ensure interoperability, access and portability of patient information and, in relation to technological devices developed for therapeutic purposes or care, an attempt is made to prevent its free use from being conditioned on the transfer of the patient's personal data.

Thus, although the Charter of Digital Rights does not incorporate legal obligations by itself, it nevertheless offers interpretive criteria that may be relevant in the process of interpretation and application of the current legislative framework, as well as serve as guidance when promoting future regulatory projects.

On the other hand, even when it does not establish legally enforceable rights, its content establishes relevant measures aimed at the public powers, in particular with regard to the General State Administration and the entities of the state public sector since, ultimately, It is an initiative promoted and formally assumed by the state government.

In short, their forecasts are of particular importance with regard to open data and the reuse of public sector information given that in the coming months important regulations will have to be approved both at the state and European level, so that the content of the Charter can acquire a singular role in the development and application of these norms.

Content written by Julián Valero, professor at the University of Murcia and Coordinator of the Research Group "Innovation, Law and Technology" (iDerTec).

The contents and points of view reflected in this publication are the sole responsibility of its author.

A draft Regulation on Artificial Intelligence has recently been made public as part of the European Commission's initiative in this area. It is directly linked to the proposal on data governance, the Directive on the re-use of public sector information and open data, as well as other initiatives in the framework of the European Data Strategy.

This measure is an important step forward in that it means that the European Union will have a uniform regulatory framework that will make it possible to go beyond the individual initiatives adopted by each of the Member States which, as in the case of Spain, have approved their own strategy under a Coordinated Plan that has recently been updated with the aim of promoting the global leadership of the European Union in the commitment to a reliable Artificial Intelligence model.

Why a Regulation?

Unlike the Directive, the EU Regulation is directly applicable in all Member States, and therefore does not need to be transposed through each Member State's own legislation. Although the national strategies served to identify the most relevant sectors and to promote debate and reflection on the priorities and objectives to be considered, the fact is that there was a risk of fragmentation in the regulatory framework given the possibility that each of the States to establish different requirements and guarantees. Ultimately, this potential diversity could negatively affect the legal certainty required by Artificial Intelligence systems and, above all, impede the objective of pursuing a balanced approach that would make the articulation of a reliable regulatory framework possible, based on the fundamental values and rights of the European Union in a global social and technological scenario. 

The importance of data

The White Paper on Artificial Intelligence graphically highlighted the importance of data in relation to the viability of this technology by stating categorically that "without data, there is no Artificial Intelligence". This is precisely one of the reasons why a draft Regulation on data governance was promoted at the end of 2020, which, among other measures, attempts to address the main legal challenges that hinder access to and reuse of data.

In this regard, as emphasised in the aforementioned Coordinated Plan, an essential precondition for the proper functioning of Artificial Intelligence systems is the availability of high-quality data, especially in terms of their diversity and respect for fundamental rights. Specifically, based on this elementary premise, it is necessary to ensure that:

• Artificial Intelligence systems are trained on sufficiently large datasets, both in terms of quantity and diversity.
• The datasets to be processed do not generate discriminatory or unlawful situations that may affect rights and freedoms.
• The requirements and conditions of the regulations on personal data protection are considered, not only from the perspective of their strict compliance, but also from the perspective of the principle of proactive responsibility, which requires the ability to demonstrate compliance with the regulations in this area.

The importance of access to and use of high-quality datasets has been particularly emphasised in the draft regulation, in particular with regard to the so-called Common European Data Spaces established by the Commission. The European regulation aims to ensure reliable, responsible and non-discriminatory access to enable, above all, the development of high-risk Artificial Intelligence systems with appropriate safeguards. This premise is particularly important in certain areas such as health, so that the training of AI algorithms can be carried out on the basis of high ethical and legal standards. Ultimately, the aim is to establish optimal conditions in terms of guarantees of privacy, security, transparency and, above all, to ensure adequate institutional governance as a basis for trust in their correct design and operation. 

Risk classification at the heart of regulatory obligations 

The Regulation is based on the classification of Artificial Intelligence systems considering their level of risk, distinguishing between those that pose an unacceptable risk, those that entail a minimal risk and those that, on the contrary, are considered to be of a high level. Thus, apart from the exceptional prohibition of the former, the draft establishes that those that are classified as high risk must comply with certain specific guarantees, which will be voluntary in the case of system providers that do not have this consideration. What are these guarantees?

• Firstly, it establishes the obligation to implement a data quality management model to be documented in a systematic and orderly manner, one of the main aspects of which refers to data management systems and procedures, including data collection, analysis, filtering, aggregation, labelling.
• Where techniques involving the training of models with data are used, system development is required to take place on the basis of training, validation and test datasets that meet certain quality standards. Specifically, they must be relevant, representative, error-free and complete, taking into account, to the extent required for the intended purpose, the characteristics or elements of the specific geographical, behavioural or functional environment in which the Artificial Intelligence system is intended to be used.
• These include the need for a prior assessment of the availability, quantity and adequacy of the required datasets, as well as an analysis of possible biases and gaps in terms of data gaps, in which case it will be necessary to establish how such gaps can be addressed.

In short, in the event that the Regulation continues to be processed and is finally approved, we will have a regulatory framework at European level which, based on the requirements of respect for rights and freedoms, could contribute to the consolidation and future development of Artificial Intelligence not only from the perspective of industrial competitiveness but also in accordance with legal standards in line with the values and principles on which the European Union is based.

Content prepared by Julián Valero, Professor at the University of Murcia and Coordinator of the Research Group "Innovation, Law and Technology" (iDerTec).

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.