论地方立法中公共数据开放的法律性质

The Legal Status of Open Public Data in Local Legislation of China

理解公共数据开放的法律性质,至少可以从三个维度进行讨论:一是将公共数据开放视为现有政府信息公开制度的自然延伸,并在具体机制上对接扩展,由此它是一种政府法律义务而非单纯的公共服务;二是基于财产理论,将公共数据视为类似于自然资源的公共信息资源,纳入国有资产管理框架,它需要保值增值;三是在前者基础上衍生出公共信托法律关系,政府在符合公共利益的原则下以适当的方式对公共数据进行开发和开放,使全社会受惠于这一过程。本文将论证:上述理论在特定方面是有道理的,但都无法单独说明公共数据开放的正当性,在执行过程中也受到相关制度的约束。公共数据是一种信息资源,在权属上应当为全民共同所有,但在价值实现机制上由作为数据控制者的政府进行收集、归集、共享和开放,将公共数据按照不同类型区别使用,并在实践过程中不断优化使用方式,扩展可供使用的公共资源的范围和程度。

There are as least three dimensions to discuss the legal status of open public data (OPD): first, to regard OPD as natural extension of the current government information publicity and hence a kind of government responsibility rather than pure public service;second, based on property theory, to regard OPD as public information resources similar to natural resources that needs to be included into the framework of state-owned assets;third, to generate certain public trust relation based on the former two points and allow the government to develop OPD based on public interest. This paper argues that the above theories are reasonable to certain extent, however, they are not able to explain the legitimacy of OPD separately. OPD is a kind of information resources and owned by the public, and its value needs to be realized by the government as the data controller and used in different ways so as to expand the range of available public resources.