Dans une lettre adressée à Larry  Page, directeur général de Google, les régulateurs expliquent qu’ils veulent évaluer les effets de la simplification des règles prévues par Google sur les internautes européens et tester leur degré de protection. En attendant ces réponses, les régulateurs ont donc demandé l’activation des nouvelles règles.

De son côté, la vice-présidente Reding, commissaire en charge du dossier s’est félicité de cette démarche qui permettra d’analyser et de mesurer de façon plus précise la conformité de ces nouveaux dispositifs avec les règles européennes, la directive de 1995,. Une directive quela Commissionvient de proposer la refonte complète le jour même où Google faisait son annonce.La Commissionentend bien s’assurer que les géants de l’informatique et plus particulièrement des firmes comme Google et Facebook donneront de réelles garanties aux internautes sur le traitement de leurs données via une information précise sur les motifs d’utilisation et un droit à l’effacement intégral de leurs données (« le droit à l’oubli numérique »). Notons qu’aux Etats-Unis également une investigation a été lancée sur les pratiques en usage et notamment sur les modes de suppression des données des internautes.

Google prévoit (et il en a largement informé les internautes mais d’une façon en général  peu compréhensible) à partir du 1^er mars de fondre environ 60 règlements distincts relatifs à la vie privée en une seule politique unique. Google s’efforce d’expliquer pourquoi les données (de localisation, les adresses IP, par exemple) sont recueillies et comment ils les utilisent. Google explique ainsi qu’il est susceptible «  d’utiliser le nom fourni dans le profil Google dans tous nos services qui requièrent l’utilisation d’un compte Google ». C’est une possibilité qui inquiètent très fortement les utilisateurs et les régulateurs. C’est pourquoi les régulateurs européens, dans leur lettre, s’inquiètent de voir Google partager les données personnelles des utilisateurs à travers ses différentes plate-formes (gmail, youtube, google+ etc….) sans laisser à l’internaute la possibilité de donner son accord préalable à cette utilisation. « Au vu de la large gamme de services que vous proposez et de la popularité de ces services, des modifications de votre politique de protection de la vie privée pourraient affecter de nombreux citoyens de la plupart, si ce n’est la totalité des Etats membres » concluent les régulateurs européens.

      -.Reply from Google adressed to the article 29 Working Party regarding the upcoming changes in their privacy Policy (03.02.2012) http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/documentation/other-document/files/2012/20120203_google_reply_to_art29_en.pdf

      -.Letter from the article 29 Working Party addressed to Google regarding the up coming change in their privacy Policy (02.02.2012) http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/documentation/other-document/files/2012/20120202_letter_google_privacy_policy_en.pdf

      -. Site de Google WWW.google.com/policies/privacy/préview

      -. Dossier Google de Nea say http://www.eu-logos.org/eu-logos-nea-recherche.php?q=google&Submit=%3E

Since the beginning of this crisis, ministers have expressed contradictory views, sometimes saying complete nonsense. So has Prime Minister himself. Someone should take responsibility for this mess, someone should apologise and this is a necessary condition, though not sufficient to sit down together at the table.

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk does not see such a need. He has simply changed his mind and he wants to talk. The debate proposed by the government is like if one gave aspirin to a patient sick with pneumonia. While what he rally needs is a hospital and an antibiotic.

Yet, amid all this change, we see the influence of regional and national cultural attitudes that persist.

The fate of European nations in the economic meltdown of the euro echoes a number of cultural characteristics of the countries most seriously hit. These start out with positive traits like family ties, self-reliance at family level (in the absence of the social safety nets provided further north), extended families and, as a symptom of this, adherence to personal and local loyalties (campanilismo) rather than acceptance of the dictates of an impersonal and distant state.

Less positive are the far reaches of this process which lead to cronyism (clientelismo in Italy, enchufe in Spain, rousfeti in Greece, and so on) and incitement to cheat on the system. Northerners may complain about these things, but they are engrained in the institutions and lifestyles of these countries and will be difficult to change.

The Nordic countries, with their commitment to social responsibility, manage to curb such human tendencies, while Germany remains true to its cultural tradition of responsibility and discipline. A Socialist political slogan from the 1920s said: “Rot ist richtig aber Ordnung muss sein!” (“Red is right but we must have order”). That commitment to discipline, regardless of one’s political views, still dominates public life in Germany.

Events in France also demonstrate a grassroots commitment to social equality, though the behaviour of the elite and the antics of the National Front suggest otherwise. As Rudolf von Thadden, a German government adviser on foreign policy, said: “The French are an autistic nation.”

Multicultural Belgium continues to practice its traditional pragmatism by ‘fixing’ its problems and those of others. Its talents of compromise and mediation have not only produced a government of its own (at last!), they are also making a substantial contribution to the task of putting Europe back on the rails. Not just leading Belgian figures like ex-PM Guy Verhofstadt in the European Parliament and another ex-PM Herman Van Rompuy, now President of the European Council, but a major contingent of Belgian administrators working in the European Commission.

While British, French, Czech and Greek Eurocrats tend to network with ‘their own’, the Belgians get on with the job. “We have a capacity for producing compromises,” says a senior Belgian official. We are pragmatic. We want to make sure that the machine works.”

Meanwhile, the English continue to show their short-termism and potential for self-delusion in their reservations about the European ideal. More than a century ago the historian Thomas Carlyle said in his book The French Revolution: “Of the continental nuisance called ‘Bureaucracy’ I can see no risk or possibility in England.” That attitude shows no sign of changing, even if the reality is different: England is now a very bureaucratic country. There are other reasons though, also predominantly cultural, that the Scots are now contemplating independence…

As for the USA, well, the traditional verbal commitment to absolute values – freedom, democracy, limited government and so on – is rampant, polarising attitudes and prompting the electorate to view the world in black-and-white terms. Manicheism should be added to the long list of weird American cults: pentacostalism, scientology and the like.

Communism was – is – a cult too, though not in the USA. Its failure in Russia and its endurance in China may also find their roots in culture, even if part of the explanation lies in the relative non-doctrinaire approach of the Chinese authorities to the way they manage their society. North Korea meanwhile holds together through a mix of traditional confucianism and Buddhism, and modern juche.

To return to recent developments, it is evident that the younger generations in the Arab world and now Russia are challenging some of the old stereotypes without necessarily changing them. The fever of revolutionary zeal released through the social media will eventually subside and the old cultural patterns will reassert themselves.

In fact, as a counter-current to globalisation, we have mounting evidence in Europe of a return to our roots. Despite the younger generations’ addiction to new technologies and the social media (or maybe because of the increased opportunity to ‘tune into’ grassroots opinions), the young are as much a party to this process as their elders.

So the hidden hand of culture is still evident in many aspects of public life. It will be fascinating to see what the coming months and years have in store. If indeed we are returning to our roots, there may be much more of the same to come.

Richard Hill’s latest book, ‘A Question of Identity: Getting the Better of Globalization’ is available on the eBook website www.europublications.com.

The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing produced since November 2012 the Strategic Implementation Plan on Active and Healthy Ageing which identifies key action areas that should bring about two extra healthy life years (HLYs) to its citizens. Be it through better ways of prevention, screening and early diagnosis or better care and cure, there are many opportunities for more and better both on the side of patients as well as on more systemic issues, where stakeholders such as  healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical groups are at a core.

But 2012 is also the European Year of Active Ageing and Intergenerational S0lidarity and beyond the events dedicated to the topic, there is a clear opportunity for more and better as more citizens and civil society organisations can network better, synergise and be informed.

For more information on the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, please consult:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/index_en.cfm?section=active-healthy-ageing

http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/pdf/active-healthy-ageing/leaflet.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none

For more information on the European Year 2012, please click here: http://www.healthyageing.eu/ or here: http://europa.eu/ey2012/ey2012.jsp?langId=en.

Les opposants au filtrage vont se réjouir de la décision prise par la Cour de Justice de l’Union européenne (CJUE) ce jeudi 24 novembre. En substance, cette dernière affirme qu’une telle mesure a des conséquences drastiques sur la liberté d’expression et la vie privée des internautes et qu’elle représente une atteinte aux droits fondamentaux des citoyens européens.

La CJUE a été sollicitée pour trancher dans une affaire opposant le fournisseur d’accès à Internet (FAI) belge Scarlet à la société de gestion des droits d’auteur Sabam, l’équivalent belge de la Sacem. En 2004, la Sabam a constaté que des internautes clients de Scarlet téléchargeaient sur Internet, sans autorisation et sans paiement de droits, des oeuvres reprises dans son catalogue en passant par des réseaux «peer-to-peer». A la demande de la société de gestion des droits d’auteur, un tribunal belge a donc ordonné à Scarlet de bloquer les échanges de fichiers chez ses clients qui téléchargeaient des œuvres musicales du répertoire de la Sabam. Scarlet a fait appel, et le juge belge a renvoyé l’affaire à la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne, qui a déclaré ce jeudi illégales les obligations faites aux FAI de surveiller les communications de leurs clients pour bloquer les échanges de contenus piratés.

La Cour s’oppose ainsi au filtrage global de la Toile qui «imposerait une surveillance générale» et «ne respecterait pas les droits fondamentaux» des internautes, à savoir «leur droit à la protection des données à caractère personnel ainsi qu’à leur liberté de recevoir ou de communiquer des informations, ces droits étant protégés par la Charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne.» Si le droit d’auteur a été reconnu par la CJUE, il n’est pas supérieur aux autres droits fondamentaux, a estimé la justice européenne.

Jérémie Zimmermann, porte-parole de la Quadrature du Net, organisation de défense des droits et libertés des citoyens sur Internet et à la pointe du combat contre Hadopi notamment au niveau du Parlement européen, a salué la décision de la CJUE, qu’il qualifie d’«historique». «A l’heure d’une large offensive contre le partage de la culture en ligne, cette décision montre que les mesures de censure exigées par l’industrie du divertissement sont un moyen disproportionné et illégitime de faire appliquer un droit d’auteur dépassé, a-t-il déclaré dans un communiqué. Cet arrêt rappelle qu’au lieu d’encourager une escalade répressive, les décideurs publics européens doivent engager une véritable réforme du droit d’auteur, à même de protéger les libertés des citoyens.» http://www.laquadrature.net/node/4887

      -.Communiqué de presse de la Cour : http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2011-11/cp110126fr.pdf

      -. Texte de l’arrêt (FR) http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/gettext.pl?where=&lang=fr&num=79888875C19100070&doc=T&ouvert=T&seance=ARRET

 (EN) http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/gettext.pl?where=&lang=en&num=79888875C19100070&doc=T&ouvert=T&seance=ARRET

http://www.lacomeuropeenne.fr/2011/11/16/policy-politics-la-politisation-de-la-communication-europeenne-en-question/

En Italie, Mario Monti, l’ancien commissaire européen prend la barre en pleine tempête et en Grèce, un autre Européen convaincu s’atèle à la tache rude qui l’attend. On ne peut qu’espérer que monsieur Papademos porte bien son nom et soit bien le Père du peuple. Le sien a en besoin.

Pourtant en fin de semaine dernière dans les couloirs du Conseil européen, le climat était anxiogène. Autrement dit les mois qui vont venir ne vont pas être simples. Il va falloir procéder à une restructuration importante du processus européen, jusqu’à aller sans doute, et je vous le disais il y a quelques semaines, vers un nouveau traité.  En effet, l’Europe ne peut continuer sur sa ligne actuelle et doit se transformer. La crise a cet effet bénéfique. Elle entraine des changements.

Les enjeux sont particulièrement importants. Premier objectif des Européens sauver coute que coute la monnaie unique.  Pour cela il faut aller plus loin dans le processus européen. Et il vaut mieux aller plus loin ensemble par un approfondissement de la zone euro à 17 mais peut être aussi à moins que 17.  Certains Etats membres de la Zone euro et de l’Union européenne devront faire le choix du chemin commun.

Parallèlement positionner des décisions structurelles va permettre d’accélérer le calendrier de façon a ce que le politique reprenne la main sur les marché. Cela est urgent et met en cause la souveraineté des Etats membres. In n’y a en effet de souveraineté qu’à la condition de pouvoir payer ses fonctionnaires. Alerte donc.

La réduction de la dette est le deuxième enjeu qui va nécessiter de remettre sur la table d’écriture un traité bien plus complet que celui de Lisbonne, qui heureusement et bien qu’il ne remplace pas le traite constitutionnel permet à l’Union de tenir la tête hors de l’eau. Mais ici aussi, il va falloir approfondir et notamment avant l’élargissement de 2013 à la Croatie.

La première condition est que l’Allemagne et La France poursuivent et confortent aujourd’hui leur leadership. Mais rapidement il faudra se positionner entre une pratique communautaire ou une pratique intergouvernementale.

Ce qui est certain c’est que le mot fédéral est désormais commun dans les discours et discussion de couloir dans les Instituions de l’Union comme dans les Représentations permanences à Bruxelles.  Cet cela c’est bien nouveau car jusqu’ici la conservation des souveraineté étaient essentielles. Il va falloir en lâcher un peu et c’est cela qui va changer notre Europe, nos pays et les relations qu’ils peuvent avoir au reste du monde. Ceci dans l’intérêt communautaire bien sûr

Ils prennent ainsi une position claire en estimant tout d’abord que l’Eglise tient sa place dans l’espace public national et européen. Le message chrétien est un message fort, martèlent ils notamment en matière d économie. Il faut dire que l’Eglise a une grande expérience du sujet s’appuyant avec force sur sa doctrine sociale.

La crise grecque est un révélateur dit le cardinal Vingt-Trois. « la solution de fermer les portes pour préserver notre petite zone de relative prospérité » n’est pas viable.

En demandant aux Chrétiens par l’entremise de leurs évêques de veiller à ne pas se laisser entrainer, et les mots sont forts,  dans la spirale de l’égoïsme, de l’isolationnisme ou de la xénophobie. le cardinal français ne fait que rejoindre le message des évêques européens portés par la COMECE, la commission des Evêques européens. Cette assemblée, partenaire des institutions européennes  indique qu’une vision politique européenne à long terme est nécessaire pour surmonter la crise.

Très simplement mais avec détermination les évêques appellent l’Union européenne et ses citoyens à s’abstenir de se faire des reproches mutuellement.  Au contraire, disent ils, nous devons assumer ensemble nos responsabilités pour trouver des solutions à la crise.

Les évêques sont convaincus que l’Eglise peut être une force de cohésion et d’espérance au sein des sociétés européennes, qui sont menacées par le populisme et la division. Les racines de la crise actuelle sont principalement morales et spirituelles. Le relativisme moral est en effet en train de modifier le sens de la responsabilité personnelle et collective à long terme. Ils précisent l’action concrète des religions : « Grâce à leurs services sociaux, les Eglises viennent en aide aux plus démunis dans nos sociétés ; elles encouragent la dignité et le bien commun contre les tendances individualistes.

Les solutions techniques et à court terme ne sont pas suffisantes disent ils.  et soulignent la nécessité d’adopter une vision à long terme pour les institutions européennes et le modèle socio-économique qu’elles défendent. Il convient en particulier de prendre mieux en compte les intérêts de la jeune génération, car elle risque d’être une des principales victimes de la crise.

Invité de la COMECE à Bruxelles, il y a quelques jours l’ancien ministre des Affaires européenne et actuel président de la Haute Autorité Financière Jean Pierre Jouyet, affirmait très justement que l’Europe reste une construction unique, qui fonctionne, et même face à cette crise, elle a su prendre des décisions structurelles.

Si nous voulons que les autres aient confiance dans l’Europe, si nous voulons que les citoyens aient confiance, il faut que l’Europe et l’Euro aient confiance en eux même.

L’enjeu est grand, au-delà d’un enjeu économique, l’Europe est un enjeu de civilisation devait-il conclure.

Youth unemployment, has peaked at over 40%, and is a worrying trend. Meanwhile opportunities created through science, information and communication technology, engineering and maths are critical to building a modern workforce. The European e-Skills week 2012 is a grass roots campaign focused on showing people how to get jobs and e-skills for life in the digital age.

Industry partners – including leading ICT companies such as Nokia, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel and numerous SMEs across Europe – in partnership with education bodies and public authorities, will deliver a large and diverse programme of events and activities in more than 30 European countries. Ministries of Education have embraced the importance of ICT and are working with industry to deliver an exciting choice of options for people looking for work, and for young people thinking about what career options are open to them.

“SMEs can only grow through employing highly skilled people,” outlined Dr Erkki Ormala, DIGITALEUROPE President. “The right skills encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. We cannot over-estimate the role of digital technology in job generation,” he said.

“The European e-Skills Week is a great initiative for you to get involved in to learn more about the skills you need to find a job,” said Marc Durando, Executive Director of European Schoolnet. “ICT is not just programming; there are so many options to be had from using technology creatively. Some of the greatest jobs can be found through technology – imagine the world without Twitter or Facebook, which were built out of a passion for technology,” said Mr. Durando.

Industry research from IDC estimates that 90% of all jobs will involve basic level of e-skills by 2015. Addressing this key challenge – skills for jobs for growth over the next few years – is a critical issue. Public-private partnerships with large companies have recognised the importance of having more people involved in a digital life, both for pleasure and for work.

The first European e-Skills week delivered hundreds events and activities in March 2010 that raised awareness amongst 65 million citizens in 35 countries of the importance of gaining e-Skills for jobs and for life.

Preparatory work for the European e-Skills Week 2012 will commence in December 2011 and activities will continue up until May 2012. Options for education, training, and opportunities for jobs and growth will be a highlight, and will demonstrate why ICT is so important for any new job.

To join the fight against unemployment citizens, companies and governments are invited engage in the European e-Skills Week 2012. To help deliver e-skills for jobs and for life check out http://eskills-week.ec.europa.eu and find ways to build our digital future together.

ABSTRACT:

In his speech at the opening ceremony of the 20th Global Forum , held on 7 November 2011 at the Flemish Parliament in Brussels, Minister Geert Bourgeois, Vice-Minister-President of the Flemish Government stressed out the Citadel Statement, a pan-European declaration initiated by the Flemish Region during Belgian Presidency of the EU (2010) that aims to identify what local governments need to deliver to meet the vision set forth by EU Ministers in the Malmö Declaration during the Swedish Presidency of The EU (2009).

Citadel comes from “Citta Ideale”, Italian for the ‘ideal city’. Citta Ideale and Citadel fits perfectly with this statement ambition: to help local governments to provide better services and to achieve their goals by using modern technology.

The Citadel Statement urges the EU and national decision makers to provide tangible support for local eGovernment across Europe in 5 key areas:

1. Common Architecture, Shared Services and Standards
2. Open Data, Transparency and Personal Rights
3. Citizen Participation and Involvement
4. Privacy and Identification of Individuals
5. Rural Inclusion

The Citadel Statement now resulted in the “Citadel on the Move” project.  Citadel on the Move is a European project coordinated by the Flemish eGovernment administration with the co-operation of 15 partners (including Fondation EurActiv PoliTech as Dissemination Leader) and cities like Manchester, Gent, Issy and Athens.

Citadel on the Move will unite Europe’s leading local government organizations with Living Lab experts, ICT specialists and researchers and expert SMEs in a common effort to harness the power of ‘Open Data’ and User-Driven Innovation Systems to develop ‘high speed’ Mobile Applications that can be shared by citizens across Europe. In so doing, Citadel on the Move aims to help deliver on the key objectives of both Malmö and the Citadel Statement by empowering citizens to use open data to create ‘smart’ mobile applications that can be potentially shared across Europe cities – large and small.

The Flemish strategy is clear: eGovernment is not “digitizing bureaucracy”. Flanders wants to lower the administrative burdens and increase the government service level by using modern technology, changing from passive public service into proactive rights and as soon as possible to comply with the principle: “don’t ask what the government already knows”. Flanders is not only aiming to improve the efficiency of the government itself, the real goal is to improve education, environment, mobility and so on.

SPEECH: Minister Geert Bourgeois, Vice-Minister-President of the Flemish Government and Flemish Minister for Administrative Affairs, Local and Provincial Government, Civic Integration, Tourism and the Vlaamse Rand

TITLE: “Citta Ideale”: helping local governments to provide better services and to achieve their goals by using modern technology.

The Flemish Government is involved in the “Citadel Statement” and the “Citadel on the Move” European project co-funded by the European Commission.

The Citadel Statement

The Citadel Statement, we launched in December 2010 with the support of 64 organisations  – including every major local government association in Europe – from over 200 cities across five continents. It urges the EU and national decision makers to provide tangible support for local eGovernment in five key areas:

1. Common Architecture, Shared Services and Standards
2. Open Data, Transparency and Personal Rights
3. Citizen Participation and Involvement
4. Privacy and Identification of Individuals
5. Rural Inclusion

The launch of the Citadel Statement generated widespread interest across Europe from sponsor organizations and external observers. Senior officials at the European Commission have called the Statement “an excellent piece of work,” and have asked to “work with those supporting the Citadel Statement in order to re-use the knowledge and experience available via the various organizations of local and regional administrations.”

In most countries throughout Europe, local governments have the closest contact with citizens and businesses, and are the front players for the service delivery to them. The Citadel Statement is a pan-European declaration that aims to identify what local governments need to deliver to meet the vision set forth by EU Ministers in the Malmö Declaration.

The name Citadel Statement refers to the European preconference the Flemish government organized during the Belgian Presidency of the European Union in 2010. The event was organized in the conference centre ‘the Citadel Park’ in Ghent. More important is that Citadel comes from “Citta Ideale”, Italian for the ‘ideal city’. Citta Ideale and Citadel fits perfectly with our ambitions: to help local governments to provide better services and to achieve their goals by using modern technology.

The goals of the Citadel Statement are perceived to be very important, but until now each community, big and small, has to face this challenge and the problems on its own. As I am responsible both for eGovernment and for local communities in Flanders it is an obvious priority for this administration to support local communities in their eGovernment policy.

We are not only writing statements and planning but in a modest way we are already implementing the recommendations of the Citadel Statement. We have built some applications, which we offer for free to the communities. We have opened our contracts with ICT and telephony providers to the local governments so they can also profit from the good conditions because of the scale of the Flemish government.

Citadel on the move

The Citadel Statement now resulted in the “Citadel on the Move” project. Citadel on the Move is a European project coordinated by my eGovernment administration with the co-operation of 15 partners and cities like Manchester, Gent, Issy and Athens. It was developed with the intention to advance the Citadel Statement.

Citadel on the Move will unite Europe’s leading local government organizations with Living Lab experts, ICT specialists and researchers and expert SMEs in a common effort to harness the power of ‘Open Data’ and User-Driven Innovation Systems to develop ‘high speed’ Mobile Applications that can be shared by citizens across Europe. In so doing, Citadel on the Move aims to help deliver on the key objectives of both Malmö and the Citadel Statement by empowering citizens to use open data to create ‘smart’ mobile applications that can be potentially shared across Europe cities – large and small.

Nowadays, mobile phones and smart phones are widely used and hold one key to ensure e-inclusion for every European citizen. At the same time social media and the evolution towards more open data are rapidly joining together to unleash the tremendous innovation potential of citizens to build the type of mobile services they want and need. Three major gaps must be filled to realise this potential:

• TECHNOLOGY: there is a need for standard mobile applications that citizens will be able to access easily and use anywhere,
• INNOVATION: there is a need to create a specific link between the Living Labs, open data and the Mobile world

• OPEN DATA: there is a need for standard templates to aggregate data from various sources and transform it into a publicly useable format – or move beyond ‘open data’ towards ‘open access.’

The goal of Citadel on the Move is to demonstrate that it is possible to combine open access data and mobile application tools to create ‘smart’, innovative citizen-generated services that can be used in differed European cities, big and small. The goal is to support, in a digital way, the European integration. In doing so, Citadel on the Move aims to help deliver on the key objectives of both Malmö and the Citadel Statement.

The vision of the Ministry about Digital Future in Flanders

The Flemish strategy is clear: eGovernment is not “digitizing bureaucracy”. We want to lower the administrative burdens and increase the government service level by using modern technology, changing from passive public service into proactive rights and as soon as possible comply with the principle: “don’t ask what the government already knows”. We are not only aiming to improve the efficiency of the government itself’ the real goal is to improve education, environment, mobility and so on. The government’s programme is already very ambitious in fields like e-learning, e-health, e-mobility. Conferences like this can inspire us to go further in that direction.

I am responsible for stimulating and supporting e-Goverment within the Flemish government and towards local governments. The Flemish eGovernment Authority, CORVE, is part of the soon to be established Flemish Information Authority and will continue to drive the overall innovation effort. The MAGDA platform from CORVE was a pioneer some years ago but now still integrates and shares data in a “classical way”. It will be transferred to an open innovation environment:

• With respect for the sensitivity of the data and the privacy of the users,
• Aware of the need for organizational mechanisms to guarantee the quality and “linkability” of the data,
• And able to integrate data coming from different data sources.

The Global Cities Dialogue on Information Society is, as you probably know, an international association with a clear objective: to stimulate initiatives which facilitate the development of the digital society in cities.

Our goal is to share our experiences and dialogue with other organizations, such as the Global Business Dialogue, Eurocities or this Global Forum. And I would like to thank the President of the Global Forum, Sylviane Toporkoff, for giving me the opportunity to share with you our reflections on open innovation.

Created twelve years ago in Helsinki, the Global Cities Dialogue was the first international initiative based on the mayors’ commitment to work together for an equal access to the information society. With my colleagues, we are working at the present on three big topics: Green IT, digital solidarity and e-Government.

In France, the city of Issy-les-Moulineaux has been committed for a long time in building a local information society which is innovative, open to all, offering a large number of electronic services.

From online registration on the electoral rolls to internet voting, passing by the mobile payment of the parking, the lending of e-books, the access to applications for smartphone, or the many administrative procedures available online, our population benefits of a large offer of electronic services.

This explains why almost ninety percent of our population is connected to the internet and why many high-tech companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Huawei or Bull, have joined my city. A city which counts more jobs than inhabitants, a unique phenomenon in France.

As European Living Lab, Issy-les-Moulineaux is transforming into a true smart city, with the project “Issy Grid”, the first “smart Grid” district in France, our participation in the European project EPIC to create a “European platform for intelligent cities”, and our contribution to the European project CITADEL, which will allow the development of new public mobile services thanks to the open data.

We have carried out a study on open data among the members of the Global Cities Dialogue. And I am happy to communicate its results to you for the first time.

To give a wider visibility to the public data means to enable the population to be better informed but also to stimulate innovation from innovative companies.

But Open Data is a new subject for the local authorities. We have surveyed eighty city members of the Global Cities Dialogue, from every continent and of different sizes. Less than ten significant examples were identified. This means that there are still a lot of questions around this issue.

The Digital Revolution has made of Internet an incredible source of information. Moreover, the rapid expansion of smartphones will increase our need to have quick answers to our questions. And, in consequence, it will increase the demand to publish a maximum of information and data, including those held by the public sector.

The Wikileaks polemic is a perfect example of the antagonism existing between the partisans of total transparency and those who consider that our society needs to keep some information secret.

In fact, the debate is not new, as the access to administrative documents was regulated well before the development of the Internet.

First lesson learnt from our study: Open data is a subject which interests mostly the specialists and there is a certain utopian enthusiasm around it.

In the cities which have embraced the Open Data, the opening of the public data is a result either of a strong political drive or the request of NGOs.

But political will is not enough. Cities have to launch calls for applications in order to stimulate the development of applications.

One of the best known examples is the one of Helsinki, in Finland. Thanks to an annual competition, several new services have seen the day, like for example Tax tree, which develops a new way of presenting the budget.

We also work, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, on the opening of data. The tourist and cultural data will be concerned on a first time. We are currently studying the possibility of using the national platform which will be launched next December and we will start discussions with the innovative companies in our city to identify the data to be published first.

It is also interesting to understand why most of the cities still do not adhere to the Open Data movement.

According to the results of the GCD study, Open Data is a process with an important impact on the organization of the local services. Open data raises legal issues (privacy, intellectual property), technical issues (format, platform), and organizational issues (decision-making, implementation).

Other obstacles are the real definition of Open Data, its business model and the coexistence of several licences. For example, Helsinki, Bordeaux and Barcelona have developed their own licences, each of them answering to different recommendations.

At the European level, new recommendations for a European licence for public sector data will be published in next January.

The number of Open Data platforms can also become an obstacle. In the United States, the coexistence of more than two thousand public platforms is criticized. The data users are often lost. This is very important because it could be an obstacle to transparency, one of the major goals of the Open Data movement.

In an attempt to solve the problem common portals are being developed, like the Spanish Basque Country’s one, of the city of Bilbao, which has the ambition to gather all the public sector data of the region. Same ambition in Helsinki where a common portal offers access to data about the Finnish capital and other towns.

In conclusion, the study, which is available for download on the Global Cities Dialogue website, shows that the Open Data movement is indeed developing, but in a scattered manner.

We need to move step by step, but, if the Open Data movement is not generalized yet, it has already allowed the online publication of a great amount of information. Several applications have been created which help improve our everyday life.

The next step which needs to be taken is to convince the local elected representatives. But first it is necessary to clarify the legal framework, to adopt technical standards, to continue the efforts to coordinate and animate the ecosystem, to analyse the experiences undertaken and to encourage the adoption of common portals.

Finally, this subject covers domains that go way beyond technical, legal or economic aspects.

It is a social debate, which relies on the idea that knowledge sharing will ensure human advancement.