Rejoining the EU? Britain has a public data problem it cannot ignore
Summary
The article argues that Britain’s approach to public-sector data has diverged from the EU’s, especially on the re-use of high-value datasets, even though environmental information rules remain closely aligned. It says this gap matters because public data underpins legal services, property transactions and wider economic activity, and any future EU re-accession would likely require the UK to adopt a more demanding data-sharing framework.
Why it matters
Residential property surveyors rely on public data such as geospatial information, official statistics and environmental datasets for valuation, due diligence and transaction support. Changes to access, licensing or re-use rules could affect the availability, cost and usability of core datasets used in surveying and property work.
Key points
- The article distinguishes between access to public information and the right to re-use it.
- UK environmental information rules remain broadly aligned with EU law, but open-data re-use rules have fallen behind.
- The EU now requires free, machine-readable access to certain high-value datasets.
- The UK still relies more on policy and licensing approaches such as the Open Government Licence.
- Any move towards EU re-accession would likely require stronger statutory obligations on public data re-use.
This is an RPSA summary of a publicly available article. The full content remains with the original publisher.
