Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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

http://www.itsyourparliament.eu/http://api.epdb.eu/http://www.parlorama.eu/http://api.epdb.eu/http://www.parlorama.eu/http://www.itsyourparliament.eu/


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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

http://memopol2.lqdn.fr/http://parltrack.euwiki.org/http://parltrack.euwiki.org/http://www.epvote.eu/http://memopol2.lqdn.fr/http://parltrack.euwiki.org/http://www.epvote.eu/


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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

http://www.votewatch.eu/http://epdb.eu/eulegislation/http://epdb.eu/eulegislation/http://epdb.eu/eulegislation/http://www.votewatch.eu/http://epdb.eu/eulegislation/


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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/

http://www.meinparlament.at/http://kohovolit.eu/http://kohovolit.eu/http://kohovolit.eu/http://www.meinparlament.at/http://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.

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=en


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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/

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/


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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

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/


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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.

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/


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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

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/


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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

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/


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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/

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/http://openlylocal.com/http://www.theyworkforyou.com/http://openlylocal.com/


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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

http://www.undemocracy.com/http://www.undemocracy.com/


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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/

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/


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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.

http://www.openaustralia.org/http://www.openaustralia.org/http://www.parliaments.info/http://www.parliaments.info/http://www.openaustralia.org/http://www.parliaments.info/


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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

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Topic Report 8: Re-use of Parliamentary Data

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