Open data

Open data – freely accessible data, information or part thereof recorded in the activities or documents of an institution, regardless of the method, form or medium in which it is presented, including register data, register information, data contained in documents and/or copies thereof submitted to a register, and data from state information systems, which may be reused and distributed by anyone for any purpose, provided that the source is indicated and the data is used under the same conditions under which it was obtained.

Information datasets managed by VSSA:

Register of Registers and State Information Systems, the purpose of which is to register state and departmental registers and state information systems, and to manage and use register data, information and documents.

Law of the Republic of Lithuania on the Right to Obtain Information from State and Municipal Institutions and Bodies. This Law ensures the right of individuals to obtain information from state and municipal institutions and bodies, establishes the procedure for exercising this right, and regulates the actions of state and municipal institutions and bodies in providing information to individuals. It also creates favourable conditions for individuals to access information held by state and municipal institutions and bodies and to use it for commercial or non-commercial purposes. This Law implements Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 on the re-use of public sector information.

Recommendations on Opening Public Sector Data, approved by Order No. 3-245(1.5E) of the Minister of Transport and Communications of 20 July 2016, which define the concept of open data and establish the objectives, methods for identifying needs and priorities for opening data, with the aim of increasing the accessibility and re-use of public sector information. The recommendations are intended for state and municipal institutions, bodies, enterprises and public institutions financed from state or municipal budgets and state monetary funds, and authorized, in accordance with the procedure established by the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Public Administration, to perform public administration functions or provide administrative and public services to individuals, including libraries, museums and state archives (hereinafter – institutions), which, in performing the functions established by legal acts, manage the data they have accumulated using information technology.

Recommendations on Data Provision Formats and Standards, approved by Order No. T-36 of the Director of the Information Society Development Committee under the Ministry of Transport and Communications of 25 March 2013, recommend open and other electronic data provision formats and standards that enable costs to be minimized when implementing interoperability between state information systems or registers without the need to acquire proprietary software. They also provide recommendations for their application when establishing, developing and/or managing state registers (cadastres), departmental registers, state information systems and other information systems referred to in Article 1(3) of the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on the Management of State Information Resources (hereinafter – the Law on Information Resources), as well as when publishing and providing documents for re-use in accordance with the provisions of the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on the Right to Obtain Information from State and Municipal Institutions and Bodies.