Following a thorough collaborative effort and an inclusive participatory process, the guidelines are specifically aimed at Public Administrations and other entities involved in the management of public sector data.
The Agency for Digital Italy has adopted and published the "Guidelines containing technical rules for open data and the reuse of public sector information", in accordance with Article 12 of Legislative Decree No. 36/2006, as amended by Legislative Decree No. 200/2021, the Italian transposition of Directive 2019/1024, also known as the Open Data Directive.
The guidelines are intended to support public administrations and other stakeholders in the process of opening data and reusing public sector information by providing guidance on the implementation of the provisions and methods regulated by the above-mentioned laws.
In particular, these guidelines cover formats, publication methods, metadata profiles, licensing and pricing, reuse requests and search tools – all aspects regulated by the Directive and the Legislative Decree. The document also includes guidance on organizational aspects and data quality.
The adoption process
The adoption process of the guidelines followed the procedure laid down in Article 71 of the CAD (Digital Administration Code): after the public consultation, conducted between June 16 and July 17, 2022, there was the issuance of the opinion by the Unified Conference and the pronouncement of the italian Data Protection Authority, in addition to the notification of the European Commission, as these are technical rules.
Furthermore, a participatory process was conducted around the guidelines to ensure the widest possible involvement, both among entities tasked with implementing the guidelines (public administrations, public and private entities) and among the stakeholders and users who represent the recipients of the document's implementation actions.
Specifically, three webinar series were organized, for a total of 13 sessions, and multiple channels were used for public consultation (Forum/Docs Italia, ParteciPA, and ISO template), resulting in the collection of approximately two hundred comments, a record for similar consultations.
A summary of the participatory process and the entire adoption process is available in the conclusive report published on dati.gov.it.