Data re-use

• The State has earmarked almost EUR 67 million for projects to develop data accessibility and re-use between 2021 and 2030.
• At the end of 2023, 40% of the open datasets on the Lithuanian Open Data Portal were available at maturity level 3 and above, making the data more readable and widely used.
• The development of a common metadata standard defining uniform requirements for data accessibility, compatibility and accuracy would ensure data quality and more efficient use.
• Less than a fourth of the needs of registered data users are met.

The National Audit Office carried out a study and assessed whether the efficient and secure opening and re-use of data is ensured.

Public sector data is a valuable resource whose re-use can generate political, economic and social benefits through digital innovation, new products and services, research, and important data-driven decisions. Lithuania aims to open up this data centrally for re-use by business, academia and public authorities. In 2023, work on the seven-year Lithuanian Open Data Portal project will be completed. The State has earmarked almost EUR 67 million for development projects to promote data accessibility and re-use between 2021 and 2030.

In Lithuania, at the end of 2023, 1 436 datasets published by 253 public sector bodies were available on the Lithuanian Open Data Portal, of which 1 301 were open and 135 were only inventoried. In 2022, more than 50% of institutions had not inventoried and opened any datasets and only a third planned to open them in the next year.

"Making data accessible and re-usable would help increase public sector efficiency, saving up to 2% of GDP. However, when opening up data, it is important to ensure that it is secure, of high quality and user-friendly for the public, business and scientific sectors, as well as for private individuals," said Auditor General Mindaugas Macijauskas.

One of the key aspects of opening up data and making it available to the public is the level of maturity of the data, as measured by Tim Berners Lee's 5-star model. At the lowest level of maturity, data such as PDF documents can be stored and used without being machine-readable, i.e. their reuse is very limited. Data at maturity level 5 can not only be easily readable, but also linked to other data or databases. At the end of 2023, 40% of the open datasets in the Lithuanian Open Data Portal were available at maturity level 3 and above. In terms of open data maturity, Lithuania ranked 7th out of 35 European countries in 2023.

A metadata standard that ensures uniform requirements for data availability, compatibility and accuracy would facilitate the quality of open data and its more efficient use in different domains. This standard was launched in 2022 but has not yet been developed.

The study found that 241 requests for datasets were registered on the Lithuanian Open Data Portal over a 4-year period, and only less than a fourth (22%) of the requests made by users were fulfilled. In the future, effective implementation of open data initiatives, a higher level of maturity of open datasets, effective assessment of data users' needs will increase the reusability of open data, and enhanced review of open data will increase the security of sensitive data.