EU Directive on Extended Open Data provides opportunities for expanded services and new innovations
To be valuable, all data needs to be managed, analyzed and transformed into insights. Valuable data is useful and creates value to organizations, both public and private. It helps businesses to achieve their goals.
Metria's expertise and breadth in geodatamaximizes opportunities
We have been waiting for the decision to expand open data for many years as it gives us the opportunity for new innovations and to expand our service offering.
Metria has long experience and deep knowledge of both geospatial data and Earth observation and environment and offers a variety of solutions and services in the field. We have also expanded our expertise in business and business ownership and can now offer an even broader portfolio and unique analysis.
It can be difficult to determine the quality of the information or which data is relevant, but at Metria we ensure the availability of data of known quality, by quality checking and processing all the data we take in through our well-established processes, before we offer it to the customer.
Customer solutions where open data is already in use
Metria has extensive experience in both producing and using open data. We have long offered mapping services that include open data and maximize the benefit for the customer by combining open data with other data and with our expertise adding quality assurance and analysis.
By combining the customer's own data with open data, Metria can produce unique geodata, analysis results or statistics that give the customer new insights. Very large amounts of data go into the AI models used and more open data will increase the possibility of developing even more innovative methods and analyzes.
Examples of open data deliverables
The GIS and remote analysis unit at Metria has, among other things, been responsible for the production of National Ground Cover Data, which is available as open data at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Open data from various authorities such as Lantmäteriet, SMHI, MSB and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency are often used in the analyses that Metria performs on behalf of customers. The EU's Copernicus Earth observation program accounts for most of the open satellite data that Metria uses. By combining the customer's own data with open data, Metria can produce unique geodata, analysis results or statistics that give the customer new insights.
In short, we work to;
- ensure the supply of the right geodata in a secure way
- maintain and quality assure data
- create insights by linking data to business processes, analyzing and creating solutions that make it useful to the organization.
These insights should lead to decisions that are consistent with the current business objectives, which differ between organizations and over time.
- For business operations, it can be important decision support and business benefit.
- For a municipality, it can be societal benefit.
- For a government agency, such as the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, it can be an environmental benefit.
Law and EU directives
The Act on the Public Sector's Access to Data, the so-called Open Data Act, entered into force on August 1, 2022. The Act is based on an EU directive on open data from 2019, the purpose of which is to strengthen the EU's data economy by increasing the amount of open data.
By February 2025, Swedish authorities must have completed the implementation, to comply with the EU directive.
The Open Data Directive aims to make public information more accessible. This means, among other things, that different actors in society should be able to use public information to create new products and services.
What data is covered by the EU directive?
The list of particularly valuable datasets adopted by the EU (2022-12-21) is divided into 6 themes:
- Geospatial data
- Earth observation and environment
- Meteorological data
- Statistics
- Business and business ownership
- Mobility
The data sets mentioned in the Directive are the EU minimum level and Sweden is free to release additional data. Metria is in close contact with all data sharing authorities to keep us and our customers updated on developments.
A cyclical process
Society and business are constantly changing as data-driven knowledge increases. Therefore, intelligent geodata management is a cyclical process that never ends. As a full-service provider, Metria develops operations so that geodata and GIS have an impact throughout the organization. A long-term approach and cost-effectiveness make us a strategic partner over time.
