Taking into account the latest events concerning the pressure of law enforcement on businesses in the field of open data, Transparency International Ukraine considers the selective approach of law enforcement bodies on these businesses unacceptable and proposes to increase the quantity and quality of open registers.
The pressure of the Security Service of Ukraine on businesses in the field of open data caused a wave of outcry among investigative journalists and civil corruption fighters, for whom the work with open data is a professional need. Instead of expanding the quality and quantity, of filling up the registries and bringing them in accordance with the law, to protect the restricted data according to the law, the State decided to fight some specific representatives of businesses which provide data collection services.
According to the Executive Director of Тransparency Іnternational Ukraine, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the Security Service of Ukraine should fight the problem at its source, not its consequences: «We stand for two approaches. The first one is to provide protection of/for restricted registries and to fight the illegal sale of their data. The second is to open all the registers permitted by the law, which are of great public interest. In Great Britain, for example, there is free access to company registers containing all the information about their history, reports, employees, etc. In Ukraine, the data on final beneficiaries and company founders that are still not publicly available and not entered in the auto register of the Ministry of Justice (АРІ)».
According to the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information», in case of great public interest (a number of requests) information managers can make a set of additional non-confidential data public.
ТІ Ukraine proposes to concentrate on the improvement of the registers, to bring them in accordance with the law, and to stop the selective pressure on businesses.
