EU committee approves sharing of public data The EU council's so-called "Coreper" committee backed Commission plans to open up public sector information such as geographical data and statistics to be re-used for any purpose across Europe. European leaders hope this will inject a much needed €40bn into the crisis­-hit Eurozone as business and developers can use the data at a low cost to create products. Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, said: "Opening up public data means opening up business opportunities, creating jobs and building communities." The UK was praised for the availability of its data. It is hoped that other countries in the 27-nation bloc can follow suit, and produce apps like Commuter, which provided live updates to London public transport users using such data. Coreper committee's latest endorsement is part of the drive to update the 2003 Public Sector Information Directive, which was introduced to make it easier for businesses to access and re-use government-held information. The European Commission is also hoping to extend the reach of the Directive to include libraries, museums and archives, so information from these institutions can be accessed for the first time. But a civil liberties protection group warned that these plans come with dangers. Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: "Open data has huge potential, but it can equally have serious and wide-ranging unintended consequences. Whether it is used to re-identify supposedly anonymous data or added to existing datasets to better profile people, every dataset released needs to be properly scrutinised to ensure these risks are addressed. "The so called "jigsaw effect" of different information being pieced together is becoming a realistic danger as computing power and the types of information available increase." European Parliament must now formally approve these reforms, which form part of the Commission's Digital Agenda strategy designed to help digital technologies deliver sustainable economic growth.