site.btaParliament Adopts Changes to Access to Public Information Act at Second Reading

Parliament has adopted at second reading changes to the Access to Public Information Act , transposing a 2019 European directive on data subject to disclosure and the reuse of public sector information. The delay in the transposition prompted the European Commission to initiate an infringement procedure  and to impose of a property sanction on Bulgaria, said the Council of Ministers.

The amendments introduce a number of new concepts and additional obligations for public sector organizations. The priority areas in which public data should be opened, the types of data subject to disclosure including dynamic data, research data and high-value data sets, and the conditions for their disclosure were defined.

The range of subjects obliged to provide information on re-use was clarified. State bodies, their territorial units, the territorial bodies of the executive power and the bodies of local self-government in Bulgaria, public law organizations and organizations carrying out scientific research, and organizations financing scientific research, including higher schools for scientific research data, were indicated as such.

Public sector organizations shall provide dynamic data for reuse using appropriate application programming interfaces (APIs) when applicable, in the form of a downloadable data array. Public sector organisations, research organizations and research funding organizations shall provide publicly funded research data representing high-value datasets in an open machine-readable format with free access.