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8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
Keywords
Parliament, Legislaon, PSI, Public Sector Informaon, Parliamentary Monitoring,
Parliamentary Informacs, Open Government Data, Open Government, Transparency,
Accountability, Parcipaon, Cizen Engagement, Democracy
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 2
European Public Sector Informaon Plaorm
Topic Report No. 2011 / 8
State of Play: Re-use ofParliamentary Data
Author: Daniel DietrichPublished: October 2011
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
Abstract
The ndings of the topic report indicate that the applicaon of Informaon and
Communicaon Technology (ICT) to the documentaon of legislave processes has become
a growing trend in parliamentary monitoring over the last decade. Dierent actors such as
Governments, Civil Society Organisaons, cizens and companies have begun to assess and
monitor the funconing of parliaments as well as their individual members.
This has led to the creaon of hundreds of new, innovave and informave websites, tools
and services that make use of parliamentary data in order to beer explain, analyse,
contextualise and visualise how parliaments actually work. The main objecves for these
evolving projects can be summarised in the categories:
overall accountability of parliaments and of the individual members of parliament(MPs) to the electorate,
increased cizens engagement in the legislave process, and
increased transparency by improved access to informaon about parliaments and
their work.
Although the objecves of these projects might vary, there is evidence that there is a
growing demand for more parliamentary data to be made available in a structured way, in
machine-processable formats and openly licensed allowing for re-use and re-distribuon ofthe data. The parliaments themselves and open-data acvist individuals and groups, in
spite of occasional taccal dierences mostly share the same strategic goal of increased
access and democrac parcipaon. While the new approaches have opened up a vast
range of possibilies for cizens and parliamentarians interacon, these sll remain
somewhat under-ulised.
1 Introduction
What issues are debated in your parliament this week? Did the polical party you havegiven your voice play an acve role in the legislave debate of a topic that really maers to
you? How did an individual Member of Parliament (MP) vote on an issue that really maers
to you?
In order to be able to answer these quesons we need informaon produced by
parliaments, MPs and those following developments - be it the media, analysts, academics,
think-tanks or lobbyists. While this has tradionally been the purview of a middleman-
class which relays the informaon between the electorate and the elected, new
informaon technology makes it possible for all - the electorate, the elected and the
middlemen to access far more informaon, to process it and analyse it in ways which werepreviously not possible. As this brief survey shows, the possibilies have been taken up
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
enthusiascally across the EU and globally by parliaments, governments, civic acvists and
the media. Challenges, however, remain.
2 Parliamentary Data
Similar to other Public Sector Bodies (PSBs) Parliaments produce large volumes of data
such as transcripts of parliamentary debates, legislave texts, aendance and vong
records, as well as informaon about individual Members of Parliament (MPs), working
groups and pares. This data is considered to be Public Sector Informaon (PSI) and in
many countries it is public by law. In European Union member states this data falls under
the provisions of the European Commission Direcve on the re-use of Public Sector
Informaon, Direcve 2003/98/EC1 and its implementaon into naonal law of the
Member States. Other laws regulang the right to access parliamentary informaon
include the Freedom of Informaon or Right to Access Informaon legislaon.
Most parliaments pro-acvely publish some informaon about parliamentary processes
either as printed material and/or online. In some cases, however, parliaments do not
present substanve informaon about their work. In other cases, the published
informaon is dicult to nd and access by the general public. If parliaments do not
publish substanve informaon its a polical problem which should be addressed by
legislaon while the problem of discoverability and accessibility of Parliamentary Data is
more of a technical problem.
But even if substanve informaon is discoverable and accessible for cizens to read, there
are other barriers that might limit or hinder the re-use and re-distribuon of the data by its
actual and potenal re-users.
3 Barriers for re-use
The barriers to the re-use of parliamentary Informaon can be threefold:
Limited Access: Informaon is not published at all or in a limited fashion
Technical: Informaon is published in a form not amenable to processing by
machines.
Legal: Informaon is published under copyright or other terms of use that inhibit or
forbid the re-use and re-distribuon.
3.1 Limited Access
Key Civil Society Organisaons (CSOs) and Human Rights Organisaons working on access
to informaon assert that a lot of parliamentary data is not being published pro-acvely.
Some CSOs use Freedom of Informaon Legislaon to enforce their right to access
informaon. Though in some cases this might be the only way to access parliamentary
data, it is not very ecient, requiring resources such as money and me on both sides.
1 hp://ec.europa.eu/informaon_society/policy/psi/docs/pdfs/direcve/psi_direcve_en.pdf
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
3.2 Formats
Access and re-use of parliamentary data might be inhibited technically because it is
published in formats that are not processable by machines. Humans might be able to read
a PDF Document or the informaon displayed in an unstructured way on a website, but in
order to automacally process this informaon for analysis or visualisaon it has to bestructured and published in machine processable formats such as XML, CSV, JASON or RDF.
3.3 Licenses
Access and re-use of parliamentary data might be inhibited legally because it is published
under Copyright expressed in licenses or terms of use regulang the condions under
which it can or can not be re-used and re-distributed. For data to be re-used as open data it
must be made available under a license that explicitly allows anybody to re-use, re-mix and
re-distribute the data free of charge for any purposes, including commercial use.
In some countries legislave texts and other informaon about parliamentary and
lawmaking processes are in the public domain by law and so not subject to any Intellectual
Property (IP) Legislaon. In other countries however this parliamentary data is subject of IP
law and thus might be subject to copyrights.
4 Re-Users of Parliamentary Data
There is a growing spectrum of actual and potenal re-users of parliamentary data such as
Members of Parliament themselves, Public Sector Bodies, journalists, researchers, cizens,
CSOs and private companies. Cases of re-use include analysis, web and mobile applicaons,visualisaons and other services both for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
4.1 Governments
Because of the importance of Parliaments in lawmaking and conducng execuve oversight
for the funconing of democrac governments, potenally the main re-users of
parliamentary data would be Members of the Parliament themselves (MPs) alongside with
other Public Sector Bodies. Some governments have understood that Public Sector Bodies
themselves are the biggest beneciaries of making data available for re-use.
Following the vision of an open and transparent government that funcons in an
accountable and ecient way while enabling cizen parcipaon, some governments have
taken up the iniave in making PSI available for re-use to the general public. The US
Government under President Obamas Open Government Direcve# is a leading example.
Also, the UK Government has shown leadership in opening up PSI into Open Government
Data.
An example of a government making parliamentary data available for re-use is the plaorm
Legislaon.gov.uk
2
which makes the great majority, but not all, types of legislave texts and
2 hp://www.legislaon.gov.uk/
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
their accompanying explanatory documents in machine processable formats. Everyone can
re-use the data free of charge under the terms of the Open Government Licence#. The
plaorm is remarkable because it allows the data to be explored via a user-friendly and
interacve interface and to be queried using Applicaon Programming Interfaces (APIs). It
also oers the raw data for download.
An other example for a government using state of the art informaon technology is the
ocial site of the Swedish parliament3(Riksdagen) providing over 180,000 documents, such
as parliamentary decisions, bills, moons and minutes of the Parliament. The service is
based on the content downloaded from standard web pages of the parliament. The
content is marked up as XML and available as RSS HTML and JSON feeds.
An other interesng example to look at is the mobile iPhone applicaon of the German
Parliament. The Bundestag-App4 was developed by a company on behalf of the German
parliament. It oers informaon about plenary sessions, commiees and individual MPs
alongside with news items about public debate. It is considered to be one of the rst
parliament mobile Applicaons developed on behalf of a parliament itself. However the
Applicaon does not show vong results of MPs or link to original texts of legislaon. It is
remarkable that the German Parliament is nancing the development of an iPhone-App
wile most of the parliamentary data is sll not available for re-use openly licensed and in
3 hp://data.riksdagen.se/
4 hp://itunes.apple.com/de/app/deutscher-bundestag/id387688942?mt=8
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
machine-processable formats. In contrast to the two examples above were parliamentary
data has been made available for re-use openly licensed and in machine-processable
formats.
4.2 Commercial Re-Use
An example for commercial re-use of parliamentary data is the website Parliamentary
Monitor5 jointly developed by the Netherlands Naonal News Agency (ANP) and the
Company Parliamentary Documentary Centre (PDC). The Parliamentary Monitor is a
knowledge management tool allowing the registered user to follow and analyse thedevelopments in and around the Dutch Parliament. The service caters to PR companies and
news agencies. Registered users can create search proles on subjects, pares or MPs and
will receive e-mail alerts with updates from various sources about the issue. There is no
informaon on turnover or client base, but PDC itself considers the tool as having been
highly successful aer the service was purchased by over 20 clients within the rst few
months.
5 hp://www.parlementairemonitor.nl/
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
Although there are more examples for commercial re-use of parliamentary data, the
ndings of this report indicate that the potenal for protable business cases in this area of
PSI is not as great as in other PSI areas such as Geodata or Meteorological Data.
4.3 Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations
Parliamentary Monitoring Organizaons (PMOs) have been monitoring parliamentary
processes and MPs performance for many years. PMOs range in size and prole from
tradional and well-established Non Governmental Organisaons (NGOs) over small
grassroots iniaves with low or almost no-budget to individuals inspired by the rise of the
Open Government and Open Data movement which we have seen over the last few years.
PMOs are beginning to play an important role in supporng parliamentary transparency
and accountability. Parliamentary monitoring can have strongly posive eects on
parliamentary performance and eecveness.
In September 2011 the Naonal Democrac Instute and World Bank Instute publishedthe results of a Global Survey of Parliamentary Monitoring Organizaons6. The ndings are:
Over 191 PMOs monitor more than 80 naonal parliaments worldwide. These
organizaons are scaered throughout the world, but most are found in Lan
America (42) and Central and Eastern Europe (28). According to project survey
results, most PMOs (94 percent) monitor naonal parliaments, while 24 percent
monitor sub-naonal legislatures. Many of these PMOs focus on monitoring the
acvies and performance of individual MPs, although many also monitor
parliaments as instuons, or the components of the parliamentary instuon,
such as parliamentary party groups or parliamentary commiees.
While a wealth of good pracce informaon exists, the overall quality of PMO
methodologies and intervenons remains mixed, and sharing good pracces
among PMOs is limited.
Major challenges facing PMOs include limited access to informaon, insucient
nancial support from local and internaonal sources, and parliamentary
resistance to their acvies.
The applicaon of informaon and communicaons technologies (ICTs) to
parliamentary work, known as parliamentary informacs, is a rapidly growing
trend in parliamentary monitoring. The impact of some PMOs has been limited by a lack of capacity to translate
monitoring into greater public awareness or advocacy.
PMOs vary in their approaches to parliamentary monitoring, with some taking
more adversarial stances toward parliaments and others choosing a more
collaborave course.
4.4 Civic Hackers
6 hp://www.ndi.org/parliamentary-monitoring-organizaon-survey
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
Its worth menoning that most of the new re-users that have created hundreds of
websites, tools and services around parliamentary data would not consider themselves as
PMOs. Some of the most impressive and most inuenal projects have actually been
developed by individuals. In the context of a study on Collaborave Producon in
eGovernment Services7 for the European Commission, presented at the ePracce
Workshop8on 27th October in Brussels, a survey9 was conducted to nd out more about
these Civic Hackers and their movaons. The results are:
82% of civic hackers do it voluntarily, without nancial rewards or funding. Only
one receives government funding. However this is possible because their costs are
in 80% of the cases below 1000 Euros per year.
In terms of drivers, 90% are movated by idenfying a need not yet covered, and
80% by the desire to make a dierence, and 40% for visibility. Money plays a minor
role.
60% say that the main obstacle is non-availability of public data. Costs and business
models instead are menoned by a minority (18% and 29%). About one-third
menons lack of interest by the public as a problem.
5 Parliamentary Monitoring
Limited access to parliamentary data seams to be the most signicant driver for a wide
spectrum of organisaons and iniaves all over the world to develop and run websites,
tools and services that help to increase the discoverability, accessibility and re-useability of
parliamentary data in order to help make parliamentary processes more transparent and to
track the acvity of individual Members of Parliament (MP) in order to increase
accountability.
6 Parliamentary informatics
The applicaon of Informaon and Communicaon Technology (ICT) to the documentaon
of legislave acvity is called Parliamentary Informacs. The principal areas of concern are
the provision, in a form conveniently readable to humans or machines, of informaon and
stascs about:
individual Members of Parliament and their acvity
legislave proposals
votes on legislave proposals
7 hp://ourservices.eu
8 hp://www.epracce.eu/en/events/2011-collaborave-producon-egovernment-services
9 hp://bit.ly/sYxqhL
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
text of legislaon
Parliamentary informacs is a growing trend in Parliamentary Monitoring and is carried out
by both Public Sector Bodies as well as private non-for-prot and for-prot actors. The
movaons of these actors range from increasing transparency in lawmaking processes,
increasing the eciency of parliamentary administraon, tracking and disclosure oflobbying and corrupon as well as facilitang democrac discourses and cizens
parcipaon.
In result the websites, tools and services developed in Parliamentary informacs show a
great variety in terms of focus and funconality. Some tools automacally aggregate and
organize informaon from parliamentary websites and contextualise it with other
informaon sources. Some other tools generate visualizaons or interacve applicaons
that help users to beer understand complex issues in lawmaking processes and other
government funcons. Other plaorms allow cizens to interact directly with MPs or
parcipate in parliamentary monitoring and policy analysis.
7 Issues
Technical and legal barriers for re-use of parliamentary data an issue of concern in many
countries. In a joint report from the Naonal Democrac Instute and World Bank Instute
on parliamentary monitoring organizaons published in September 2011, the lack of
parliamentary data being available as open data is cited as a fundamental issue for further
development in the eld of parliamentary informacs. The report explains:
Parliamentary informacs, which are used by approximately 40 percent of PMOssurveyed, are oenmes delivered through user-friendly and visually aracve websites.
While they have proven eecve in many instances, the most useful informacs tools
require the availability of parliamentary data in machine-readable or open data formats,
which remains a challenge in many contexts.
As a result many parliamentary informacs projects use techniques such as screen scraping
to access the data as it can be found on parliament or other government websites and
publicaons. While this data is oen unstructured it has to be structured and transformed
into formats that can be processed by machines. This process is oen technically complex
and requires skilled personal and a lot of me - resources that are a real challenge for smallor medium size PMOs.
8 Approaches
As discussed above, PMOs chose dierent approaches for their parliamentary informacs
projects. Most PMOs focus on monitoring individual MPs while others take a broader
approach by also monitoring or assessing the parliament as an instuon with its polical
pares, party groups and commiees.
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
8.1 Monitoring Individual MPs
PMOs have developed a variety of tools and techniques to monitor the acvity and
performance of individual MPs. Monitoring MPs may include: collecng background
informaon about individual MPs, measuring MPs parliamentary aendance and
parcipaon in parliamentary debates, tracking MPs vong records or monitor theconstuency work of MPs. Some PMOs have added nancial disclosures to the informaon
about MPs while others have developed scorecards or indices to summarize the
performance of MPs. Another interesng approach is the measurement of the MPs use of
oversight tools such as oral and wrien quesons, interpolaons, requests to government
for acon or issuing of invesgave reports. The ndings of the above menoned survey by
the Naonal Democrac Instute and World Bank Instute on Parliamentary Monitoring
Organizaons, states (page 27):
Individual MPs are a primary focus of parliamentary monitoring acvies for 86
percent of PMOs surveyed. Many PMOs view individual MP monitoring as a means
to develop a culture of accountability within parliament. Their tools are generally
aimed at helping cizens beer understand the work of MPs - both to facilitate
their decision making at the polls and to encourage their parcipaon in the
polical process in-between elecons. This type of monitoring also helps MPs
recognize that they are subject to public scruny as well as conveys the expectaon
that MPs honorably conduct the dues of their oce, although PMOs oen seek to
balance naming and shaming taccs with support for broad-based parliamentary
reform. Many PMOs also, somewhat more obliquely, try to establish a link
between cizens and elected people by building mechanisms to facilitate cizen
input to their MPs on legislaon or other types of constuent requests, and to
expedite MP responsiveness.
8.2 Monitoring Parliaments
PMOs have developed a variety of tools and techniques to monitor a parliament and its
funcons. The main theme here is to contextualise and explain how a parliament works. A
common approach is to assess and analyse parliamentary acvity and funconing. Some
PMOs monitor the producvity of a parliament compared to previous legislave sessions or
years by counng the number of pieces of legislaon passed or the number of
amendments incorporated. Others studying vong paerns by pares or coalions to drawconclusions of how public policies are made. Others have developed indicators to assess
the work of pares, party groups or commiees. An other approach is the tracking of
legislave process and legislave texts over me.
9 Challenges
The use of parliamentary informacs presents numerous challenges. Parliaments that do
not publish substanve informaon about their work on their websites limit the ulity of
the most eecve informacs tools. Informaon can only be re-used if it is available inmachine-readable formats and licensed openly to allow for re-use.
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Digital Trends study11.
10.1 European Level
Regulaon (EC) No 1049/200112 of the European Parliament and the Council of 30 May
2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents
grants the right of access to documents of the three instuons to any Union cizen and to
any natural or legal person residing, or having its registered oce, in a Member State.
"Document" is dened broadly and it is assumed that all documents, even if classied, may
be subject to right of access unless it falls under one of the excepons. If access is refused,
the applicant is allowed a conrmatory request. A complaint against a refusal can be made
with the European Ombudsman and/or an appeal can be brought before the European
General Court.
It's Your ParliamentThe website provides access to informaon on vong records of the European Parliament
from 2009 onwards (2004 to 2009 available through an API). The vong records can be
accessed for individual parliamentarians, parliamentary groups, countries or policy areas.
The legislave documents concerned are linked with the vong records.The site publishes
stascs such as numbers of votes, aendance rate etc. calculated for polical groups,
member states and policy area.
11 . hp://www.epdigitaltrends.eu/
12 hp://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/PDF/r1049_en.pdf
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The page was set up and is run by Buhl & Rasmussen, a Danish company specialising in
opening access to polical data without nancial support from other sources. The aim is to
provide increased public access to the workings of the European Parliament. Informaon is
provided in English. hp://www.itsyourparliament.eu/
API for European Union legislaon
The Applicaon Programming Interface (API) opens up core EU legislave data for further
use, such as research on the decision-making me, analysing vong paerns, measuring
the acvity of Commissioners and visualising the legislave integraon process over me.
hp://api.epdb.eu/
Parlorama
The site gathers, analyses and regroups publicly available data from European Assemblies
using a methodology developed specically for the site. Informaon is provided in English,
French and German. hp://www.parlorama.eu/
Polical Memory
The project provides a toolbox to help track vong records of Members of the EuropeanParliament and to reach them. Informaon is provided in English and French. The project
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 14
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
was launched in 2009 and re-launched in 2011. hp://memopol2.lqdn.fr/
ParlTrack
The project is based on an iniave by the European parliament and EU to improve the
transparency of legislave processes. It provides a database of dossiers, parliamentarians,
vote results and commiee agendas and allows the tracking of dossiers using email and
RSS. Informaon is provided in English.hp://parltrack.euwiki.org/
EP Vote
Launched in July 2009, EP Vote aims to track the votes in the European Parliament and
visualise them. Users can check the vong records of individual MEPs, this informaon can
be sorted by party / group aliaon and country. Users can also see votes on single
legislave texts such as direcves, regulaons and internaonal treaes linking back to the
original source of the legal texts. The collected informaon on votes resembles Yes / No /
Abstain and No Vote (i.e. MEP didnt aend plenary for whatever reason).
The Website is run by a private person and has no direct aliaon to any polical party or
group. No informaon is provided with respect to funding, other nancial details and sta.
Informaon is available in English. hp://www.epvote.eu/
VoteWatch
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State of Play: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
The website is run by an independent organisaon which aims to increase transparency in,
public understanding of, and public interest in EU decision-making processes by providing
access to and analysis of the work of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
It uses stascal models developed by the London School of Economics and Polical
Science and the Universit Libre de Bruxelles. The website covers the European
Parliament's acvies during the enre 2004-2009 term and the 2009-2014 term.
VoteWatch exhibits the votes of polical pares in the European Parliament and displays
aendance and acvity records (including Vong and Aendance, Reports, Declaraons,
Speeches, Moons, Opinions and Quesons) of Members of the European Parliament for
all of the European Unions 27 member states. Informaon is updated aer each vong
session and provided in English, French, German, Polish and Romanian. The project was
launched in 2009. hp://www.votewatch.eu/
The evoluon of European Union legislaonThe visualisaon applicaon by Buhl & Rasmussen graphically demonstrates the
quantave evoluon of EU regulaons from 1950 to 2011. The site is available in all
ocial EU languages.hp://epdb.eu/eulegislaon/
10.2 EU Member States
Austria
Mein Parlament
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The site provides informaon on the workings of the Austrian parliament and Austrian
Members of the European Parliament. It enables the public to engage in discussions with
parliamentarians. Informaon is provided in German and the site is modelled aer a
similar site in Germany. hp://www.meinparlament.at
Czech Republic
Koho Volit
Koho Volit is a volunteer-based, joint Czech-Slovak project which provides access to
informaon on Czech Upper and Lower Houses of parliament, the Slovak parliament,
municipalies in both countries and the European Parliament. It provides vong records as
well as informaon about other parliamentary moons and acvies such as quesons,
reports, speeches and opinions. Also the site calculates a so-called KohoVolit Index and a
bubble-visualisaon of vong derivaon from polical group or country.
The site provides informaon in Czech, Slovak and English, no informaon about the launch
date is given.hp://kohovolit.eu/
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Denmark
Hvem Stemmer Hvad
The website aims to increase parliamentary transparency in the Folkenget with vong
stascs and tracks parliamentary quesons, aendance levels and media menons of
Danish policians. It has also made analyses of municipal elecons in Denmark and on
vong behavior in the European-Parliament and EU Council. The site oers access to its
data through an API. The informaon is provided in Danish.
hp://www.hvemstemmerhvad.dk
Folkets Ting
The website is a volunteer-run project providing a froum for discussing laws, policians and
polical issues. It also oers rss feeds and lets users comment on content. The site is in
Danish. hp://folketsng.dk/
Finland
Kansan Muis
The website allows users to track parliamentary performance of depues and comparing
these with campaign promises based on comprehensive records of parliamentarians
acvies. Planned features will allow users to compare their views with those of
parliamentarians as well as of lobby and interest groups. The site is in English and Finnish.
hp://www.kansanmuis.
Nomen Est Omen
The site allows for a comparison of family inuence based on a search of public European
databases. The number of MP's with the chosen surname is one of the factors to count the
eliteness of a family name.hp://www.nomenest.info/?hl=en
France
NosDputs
The website tracks the acvies of members of the French Naonal Assembly, providing
informaon on individual MPs, issues being debated and providing a discussion forum. Thesite also publishes reports and analyses. Users can access a wide range of documents as
well as moons and opinions from MPs on specic issues.
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 18
http://www.hvemstemmerhvad.dk/http://folketsting.dk/http://www.kansanmuisti.fi/http://www.nomenest.info/?hl=enhttp://www.nomenest.info/?hl=enhttp://www.hvemstemmerhvad.dk/http://folketsting.dk/http://www.kansanmuisti.fi/http://www.nomenest.info/?hl=en8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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The informaon is provided in French. The Site is run by Regards Citoyen, a non-parsan
NGO who also fund it out of their own sources. hp://www.nosdeputes.fr/
NosSnateurs
The site is a sister project of NosDputs, but concentrang on the members of the second
chamber, the French Snat. hp://www.nossenateurs.fr/
Germany
AbgeordnetenWatch
The website aims to increase parliamentary transparency and accountability ofparliamentarians by allowing users to debate issues with members of parliament, track
vong records, and provides insight into extra earnings of parliamentarians. Informaon is
provided in German.hp://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/
Ireland
Kildare Street
The site provides users with access to informaon on members of, debates in and answers
to parliamentary quesons in both houses of the Irish Parliament, the Dil ireann and
Seanad ireann. The volunteer-run site was inspired by the UK equivalent,
TheyWorkForYou. The informaon is provided in English. hp://www.kildarestreet.com/
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 19
http://www.nosdeputes.fr/http://www.nossenateurs.fr/http://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/http://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/http://www.kildarestreet.com/http://www.kildarestreet.com/http://www.nosdeputes.fr/http://www.nossenateurs.fr/http://www.abgeordnetenwatch.de/http://www.kildarestreet.com/8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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Italy
OpenParlamento
The OpenParlamento by openpolis allows users to track legislave progress, votes and
Parliament members acvies. The page ulises ocial data from both Chambers of the
Italian parliament and lets users comment, vote and amend parliamentary acts. It provides
users with the ocial legislave texts and dras as well as rss feeds. The portal provides
informaon in Italian.hp://parlamento.openpolis.it/
Latvia
Gudras Galvas
The site is a social networking plaorm where users can get in contact with
parliamentarians and ministers and discuss polical issues in online fora. It provides userswith the proles of members of parliament and ministers, including their statements in the
media and elecon campaign promises. The site provides informaon in Latvian.
hp://gudrasgalvas.lv/
Lithuania
Atviras Seimas
The site tracks parliamentary acvity by providing stascs on aendance levels of MPs,
votes, speeches, rebellions, travel maps, popularity rangs based on internet search result
counts. It is a volunteer-run website. The informaon is provided in Lithuanian.
hp://atviras-seimas.info/
Mano Seimas
Mano Seimas publishes vong records for interesng or controversial bills, provides MP's
biography and allows to ask quesons and receive answers from MPs. Part of the published
data is fetched through API provided by Atviras Seimas. Mano Seimas is a part of e-
democracy project run by Instute of Internaonal Relaons and Polical Science, Vilnius
University.hp://www.manoseimas.lt/
Manobalsas
The site is a smart vong tool allowing users to take a compare their polical posions with
candidates and pares. Informaon is provided in Lithuanian.
hp://manobalsas.lt/index/index.php
Netherlands
Het Nieuwe Stemmen
The Het Nieuwe Stemmen Foundaon runs several projects aiming to increase
transparency and accountability. These include: Wiekiesjij, hp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/wiekiesjij-1/ helps you nd the
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 20
http://parlamento.openpolis.it/http://parlamento.openpolis.it/http://gudrasgalvas.lv/http://atviras-seimas.info/http://www.manoseimas.lt/http://www.manoseimas.lt/http://manobalsas.lt/index/index.phphttp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/wiekiesjij-1/http://parlamento.openpolis.it/http://gudrasgalvas.lv/http://atviras-seimas.info/http://www.manoseimas.lt/http://manobalsas.lt/index/index.phphttp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/wiekiesjij-1/8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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polician of your choice based on experse, professional background, age, religious
aliaon, and polical experience.
Toevalofniet: hp://www.hackdeoverheid.nl/2011/01/toeval-of-niet/ shows
inuence links between policians and maps the 'old boys networks'. Project is a
collaboraon with the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.
Volgmijnstem: hp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/volgmijnstem This
website monitors parliamentary acvity and presents it as context informaon on
the website nu.nl.
Weenstrijd: hp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/weenstrijd/ is a game
that simulates how parliaments work. Uses actual proceedings from the EU and
Dutch parliament.
Maildepoliek: hp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/maildepoliek/
allows cizens to request an answer by e-mail from mulple MP's on a specic
subject. Conversaon is being published on the site.
Polixhp://www.polix.nl/tracks vong behaviour of Dutch polical pares.
hp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl
Politwoops
The site publishes deleted tweets of policians in the Dutch Parliament.Informaon is
provided in Dutch.hp://politwoops.nl/
StemmentrackerThe site allows users to vote on current issues debated in parliament and compare these
with actual vong behaviour of pares. Background informaon is provuded for crucial
votes. The site is maintained by the nonparsan, non-prot Instuut voor Publiek en
Poliek (IPP). Informaon is provided in Dutch. hp://www.stemmentracker.nl
Poland
Sejmometr
The site monitors both houses of the Polish parliament (Sejm and Senate), providing
informaon on elecon results, vong records and individual parliamentarians and pares.The site also provides an API (the data from the site is availble under an open license and
machine readable in JSON-Format).
Users can see which debates their MP of interest joined and what he or she said. Recent
projects to change a law or cra a new one are bundled together in a dossier. People can
view the meline (The dra has reached the Sejm now) and can read reports and relevant
debates.
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 21
http://www.hackdeoverheid.nl/2011/01/toeval-of-niet/http://www.hackdeoverheid.nl/2011/01/toeval-of-niet/http://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/volgmijnstemhttp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/wettenstrijd/http://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/maildepolitiek/http://www.politix.nl/http://www.politix.nl/http://www.politix.nl/http://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/http://politwoops.nl/http://politwoops.nl/http://www.stemmentracker.nl/http://www.hackdeoverheid.nl/2011/01/toeval-of-niet/http://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/volgmijnstemhttp://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/wettenstrijd/http://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/projecten/maildepolitiek/http://www.politix.nl/http://www.hetnieuwestemmen.nl/http://politwoops.nl/http://www.stemmentracker.nl/8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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In the statystyki informaon is collated regarding the number of votes, social structure of
the parliament etc.Sejmometr is maintained by the ePastwo Foundaon, with help from
the Open Society Instute, mysociety.org and the Fundacja Batorego. Informaon is
provided in Polish.hp://sejmometr.pl/
Portugal
Demo.craca
The site monitors the acvies of the Portuguese parliament, providing informaon on
individual parliamentarians since 1976 and parliamentary sessions from 2009 onwards. Thesite is on Portuguese.hps://demo.craca.org/
Romania
Aleii Voteaz
The site run by the Instutul pentru Polici Publice tracks parliamentary acvity including
vong paerns of pares and parliamentarians, legislave acts discussed, and the work of
commiees in the Chamber of Depues and the Senate. Informaon is provided in
Romanian.hp://www.alesiivoteaza.ro/
Slovakia
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 22
http://mysociety.org/http://mysociety.org/http://sejmometr.pl/posiedzeniahttp://sejmometr.pl/posiedzeniahttps://demo.cratica.org/https://demo.cratica.org/http://www.alesiivoteaza.ro/http://www.alesiivoteaza.ro/http://mysociety.org/http://sejmometr.pl/posiedzeniahttps://demo.cratica.org/http://www.alesiivoteaza.ro/8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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Koho Volit
Please see Koho Volit project above under the secon Czech Republic, as the site covers
the parliaments of both the Czech Republic and Slovakia: hp://kohovolit.eu/
Sweden
Kalla fakta om de folkvalda
The site, run by the TV4, provides informaon on praliamentraians, including aendance
records and incomes. The informaon is provided in Swedishparliament members compiled
by Swedish TV4. hp://www.tv4.se/kalla_fakta/riksdb/riksdagsledarmoten.acon
OpenGov
The site promotes access to publicly available governmental data sources and documents,
including legislave processes. The site is in English and Swedish.hp://www.opengov.se/
Skuggrix
The site allows users to vote on the same issues as parliament and compare their
prefernces with actual vong behaviour.hp://skuggrix.se/
Riksdagskollen DN
The site run by the newspaper Dagens Nyheter allows users to track bills proposed by
parliament members and contact parliamentarians with quesons. The site is in Swedish.
hp://riksdagskollen.dn.se/
Valpejl
The service provided by Swedish Radio SR and Swedish Television SVT allows users to
search for informaon on depues in the naonal, county and municipal parliaments,
including informaon on income and real estate property owned. The service also allows
users to compare their views with those of the depues. The site is in Swedish.
hp://valpejl.se/
Min Ledamot
The site allows users to search for their parliament members and respecve aendancerecords based on the postal code. The site is in Swedish.hp://minledamot.se/
eDemokrat.se
The site allows users to track legislave documents from the Riksdag. The site is in Swedish.
hp://edemokrat.se/
United Kingdom
TheyWorkForYou
They Work For You is the biggest, most comprehensive Parliamentary Monitoring System,orginially started by volunteers (more informaon see below). It provides users with access
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 23
http://kohovolit.eu/http://www.tv4.se/kalla_fakta/riksdb/riksdagsledarmoten.actionhttp://www.opengov.se/http://www.opengov.se/http://skuggrix.se/om-skuggrix.htmlhttp://skuggrix.se/om-skuggrix.htmlhttp://riksdagskollen.dn.se/http://valpejl.se/http://minledamot.se/http://minledamot.se/http://edemokrat.se/http://kohovolit.eu/http://www.tv4.se/kalla_fakta/riksdb/riksdagsledarmoten.actionhttp://www.opengov.se/http://skuggrix.se/om-skuggrix.htmlhttp://riksdagskollen.dn.se/http://valpejl.se/http://minledamot.se/http://edemokrat.se/8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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to informaon to both Houses of the UK Parliament and to the regional assemblies
(Northern Irish, Scosh and Welsh assemblies). It has put parliamentary archives online,
debates can be read at full length with citaon of each single speech. Speeches can also be
deep-linked and annotated.
Users can nd detailed informaon about the members of parliament (Lords as well as
MPs), including a so ranking on acvies (speeches, quesons and moons are ranked
from well above average to well under average of other members of both houses). Wrien
Answers and Statements are also up for reading and annotaon, the upcoming secon
provides people with informaon about the future agenda in the dierent bodies of
parliament.
TheyWorkForYou began mostly as a volunteer eort and is now supported by the not-for-
prot CSO mySociety and donaons. Although there now is a payed admin for the site, new
TheyWorkForYou-features are sll developed mostly by volunteers.
hp://www.theyworkforyou.com/
Openly Local
The iniave seeks to make as much local government data available as possible, includingcouncil meengs, council spending and councillors. hp://openlylocal.com/
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 24
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10.3 Internaonal
UNdemocracyThe website UNdemocracy gives hyperlinked access to transcripts of the General Assembly
and Security Council of the United Naons, with parsed vong records. The aim of the site
is to make decisions of the ve main bodies of the UN system more accessible to cizens. It
is maintained by a cizens organisaon independent of the UN system and is also
hyperlinked to pages providing informaon on the United Naons. The site is in English.
hp://www.undemocracy.com/
AGORA, the Portal for Parliamentary Development
The site aims to be a one-stop reference centre and hub for knowledge sharing on
parliamentary development globally. AGORA consists of an implemenng board drawingon the United Naons Development Programme;the World Bank Instute; the Naonal
Democrac Instute for Internaonal Aairs (NDI); the Internaonal Instute for
Democracy and Electoral Assistance (Internaonal IDEA); and the European Commission. It
was established aer a series of donor meengs in 2007 and 2008 on parliamentary
development, movated by the increasing importance of the issue to donors.
The site is accessible in English, French and Russian, with plans to provide Arabic and
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 25
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Spanish services in the near future. It has a searchable database of over 900 documents on
parliamentary development worldwide and a calendar of events related to the issue.
Access is restricted to approved members.hp://www.agora-parl.org/
USA
Open Congress
The non-prot, non-parsan public resource website combines ocial government data
with news coverage, blog posts and public comments on the US Congress.
The website is maintained by the Parcipatory Polics Foundaon, a non-prot
organizaon with a mission to encourage civic engagement, and funded by the Sunlight
Foundaon. It provides informaon on bills, parliamentarians, votes, issues, and campaign
nancing. The informaon is available in English. It aims to increase public awareness,
transparency and access to informaon regarding the workings of the US Congress.
hp://www.opencongress.org/
Canada
Open Parliament
The volunteer eort-based website aims to provide informaon on the workings of the
Canadian parliament to the public. It provides access to informaon on parliamentarians,
bills and parliamentary debates. Informaon is provided in English. The site was inspired inpart by the UK website They Work For You. hp://openparliament.ca/
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 26
http://www.agora-parl.org/http://www.agora-parl.org/http://www.agora-parl.org/http://www.opencongress.org/http://openparliament.ca/http://www.agora-parl.org/http://www.opencongress.org/http://openparliament.ca/8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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Australia
OpenAustralia
The website is run by Open Australia Foundaon with support from volunteers. It provides
access to informaon on parliamentarians, parliamentary debates and legislaon. The site
was launched in 2007. Informaon is provided in English. The site was inspired by the UK
website They Work For You. hp://www.openaustralia.org/
Pan Africa
Africa i-Parliaments
Africa i-Parliaments is a regional portal launched in 2005 aimed at strengthening the role of
African Parliaments in fostering democracy and good governance by developing common
informaon services and tools, and building informaon management capabilies as wellas public access to informaon.hp://www.parliaments.info/
11Conclusions
As this survey shows, the past years have seen a blossoming of re-use of parliamentary
data, both at the global level and, perhaps even more so, in EU member countries. While
commercial re-use of parliamentary data does not seem to be as interesng as other, more
classical re-use of PSI (e.g. geo-data), it does aract a dierent category of social
entrepreneurs who are movated more by civic ideals than economic prot.
As the examples show, there are few limits to the creavity of the re-users in terms of
shedding light on the workings of parliamentary processes, increasing transparency and
accountability, but also enabling a more eecve and fruiul dialogue between lawmakers
and the electorate. Though an increasing number of parliaments are making data publicly
available, challenges remain. Key barriers to re-using parliamentary data are:
Limited Access: Informaon is not published at all or in a limited fashion.
Technical: Informaon is published in a form not amenable to processing by
machines.
Legal: Informaon is published under copyright or other terms of use that inhibit or
forbid the re-use and re-distribuon.
Ideally, the parliaments and PSI acvists share common goals in this respect and will seek
to work to overcome these problems. A further challenge, however, remains in acvang
the broader public in parcipang acvely in democrac processes, be it through the
tradional means or through the new possibilies opened through PSI access technologies.
ePSIplatform Topic Report No: 2011 / 8 October 2011 Page 27
http://www.openaustralia.org/http://www.openaustralia.org/http://www.parliaments.info/http://www.parliaments.info/http://www.openaustralia.org/http://www.parliaments.info/8/3/2019 Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data
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About the Author
Daniel Dietrich, born 1973 in Frankfurt, Germany. His academic work surrounds policalscience, computer science and communicaon science in Frankfurt and Berlin. He works as
Research Associate at Technical University Berlin, Department of Internet and Society. He isworking part-me for the Open Knowledge Foundaon (OKF), since 2009. He is the ocialrepresentave and the Chairman of the German Chapter of the Open KnowledgeFoundaon. He is the Project Coordinator for the OKF Project Open Denion as well asthe Coordinator of the Working Group on Open Government Data and the Working Groupon Open Data in the EU. He is also co-founder and Chairman of the Open Data Network, anon-prot advocacy organisaon to promote the Open Data, Open Government andTransparency in Germany and beyond. In 2011 he became Editor of the ePSIplaorm.
Copyright information
2011 European PSI Plaorm - This document and all material therein has been compiledwith great care. However, the author, editor and/or publisher and/or any party within theEuropean PSI Plaorm or its predecessor projects the ePSIplus Network project or ePSINetconsorum cannot be held liable in any way for the consequences of using the content ofthis document and/or any material referenced therein. This report has been publishedunder the auspices of the European Public Sector Informaon Plaorm.
The report may be reproduced providing acknowledgement is made to the European PublicSector Informaon (PSI) Plaorm. The European Public Sector Informaon (PSI) Plaorm isfunded under the European Commission eContentplus programme.
http://www.google.co.uk/http://www.google.co.uk/http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/econtentplus/index_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/econtentplus/index_en.htmhttp://www.google.co.uk/http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/econtentplus/index_en.htm