The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, with support from the USAID Judicial Reform and Government Accountability programme (JRGA) and the Education Centre association, decided today to "open" publicly available data held by this institution where this is technically feasible.

The concept "open data" includes publicly available data which can be freely used without restrictions by the author, which are machine readable, timely, available and, where possible, free of charge. The term "open data" has been used since 2008 and it has been gaining popularity after opening of data at websites such as Data.gov (USA) or Data.gov.uk (UK).

The Education Centre, in cooperation with the Commissioner, has made visual representations of certain databases so that citizens, as well as any other potential users, could better understand information held by the Commissioner. The promotion of the Commissioner's open data is also organized with the aim of promoting the concept of "open data" in Serbia by this example and encouraging other authorities to open their data.

At the Commissioner's web addresses otvorenipodaci.poverenik.rs and data.poverenik.rs there are currently 13 "open" data sets, including: the catalogue of public authorities, complaints in the field of freedom of information, legal actions against the Commissioner in the field of freedom of information, proposals for enforcement of decisions in the field of freedom of information, Commissioner's acting on petitions, Commissioner's acting on forwarded requests, measures for improvement of transparency of work, requests for access to information filed to the Commissioner, the Central Register - personal data protection, request for changes in the Central Register, complaints in the field of personal data protection, opinions in the field of personal data protection, enforcement of the Law on Personal Data Protection.

The website also contains visualizations based on open data in the Catalogue of Public Authorities and complaints in the fields of freedom of information and personal data protection.