France: Law For A Digital Republic Of 7 October 2016

On Friday 7 October 2016, the President of the French Republic promulgated Law no. 2016-1321 of 7 October 2016 for a Digital Republic.

This law addresses numerous issues such as net neutrality, transferability of data, the right to continued internet service, the confidentiality of private correspondence, the right to be forgotten for minors, open government data, digital data management after death, open government algorithms and even the official recognition of video game competitions.

The law is intended to anticipate changes relating to digital technology in general and consists of three parts:

1. The circulation of data and knowledge
2. The protection of individuals in the digital society
3. Universal access to digital technology

The circulation of data and knowledge

Through :

1) Open government data

• Open and free access to INSEE data: a hackathon focused on the SIRENE database was organized in November, and the data will be available free of charge on 1 January 2017: by combining it with other data such as the land registry, it will be possible, for example to make interactive maps concerning companies and their business, addresses, and characteristics.

• Sharing of data at no cost between government departments will be introduced on 1 January 2017: the Ministry of the Environment could, for example, have access free of charge to the tidal data produced by the SHOM (Naval Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service), which is currently available for a fee.

• Open access will be automatic for public administration data. The implementing decrees will be published by the beginning of 2017. The objective set by the law is the progressive publication, over a period of two years, of the main administrative documents, followed by publication of all documents of interest concerning the economy, health, or the environment.

• Opening of data concerning public subsidy contracts

• Opening of case law data: the implementation process has been launched in the context of a working group composed of stakeholders: legal services, Legifrance, Cour de cassation, constitutional council / Council of State, CNIL data protection authority.

• Opening of energy consumption data: work on this has started with the various entities involved (CRE, ERDF, GRDF and the CNIL).

2) The creation of a data-oriented public service

Data-oriented public service. The Government must provide key data such as addresses, certain cartographic archives or INSEE codes for municipalities, in the form of API, so that companies can reuse them for their services.

Date of entry into force : 1 January 2017

Implementing regulations : Decree to be issued

3) The introduction of the concept of data of general interest, to allow everyone to re-use this data

Explicit mention of the use of algorithmic processing in the context of an administrative decision and the possibility for the user to request the main rules

Date of entry into force : end of 2016

Implementing regulations : Decree to be issued

4) Development of the knowledge-based economy, in particular by allowing researchers to make the scientific articles they have authored publically available after a waiting period of 6 to 12 months

Free access to scientific articles resulting from public research, via the right given to researchers to make their articles available after a short embargo period of 6 to 12 months, and this no matter what the agreement made between the researcher and the publisher of the journal in which the article appeared.

Date of entry into force : as from 9 October 2016

Implementing regulations : Law no. 2016-1321 of 7 October 2016 for a Digital Republic

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.