Minister Kamp of Economic Affairs wants the Chamber of Commerce to publish a subset of the Dutch company register as open data. The minister of Economic Affairs wrote this to the parliament in response to a parliamentary motion that has asked the minister to launch an investigation into the disclosure of the company register as open data.
Two reports
Earlier, the minister asked the Chamber of Commerce itself to do this research. The study was already several months at the ministry of Economic Affairs. In addition, TU Delft was asked to provide the report with comments. Today, both reports were sent to parliament today by the Minister of Economic Affairs.
The reports show that current legislation should be amended to allow the company register to be published as open data. According to Minister Kamp is unlocking the company register as open data “primarily” a debate on how we deal with and fund the basic public registers in the Netherlands.
First step
‘This is a first step toward an open company register,’ says Arjan El Fassed, Director of Open State Foundation. ‘The opening of commercial information as open data is of great importance for the economy, trade, innovation and transparency. The current way the company register is financed is a major obstacle to reuse of data from this public register. The government will have to come up with a solution.’
Open State Foundation has been promoting the unlocking of the company register for a long time. Earlier disclosed documents show that the Dutch Chamber of Commerce is more expensive than company registers in for example the United Kingdom and Australia, where company registers are open.
