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Teaching Documents by Aikaterini Yannoukakou

Σκοπός της παρουσίασης είναι μια πρώτη επαφή με την κυβερνητική πληροφορία υπό την έννοια τόσο τω... more Σκοπός της παρουσίασης είναι μια πρώτη επαφή με την κυβερνητική πληροφορία υπό την έννοια τόσο των ορισμών όσο και των παραδειγμάτων με έμφαση στην επαναχρησιμοποίηση των πληροφοριών του δημόσιου τομέα, οι οποίες θεωρούνται από την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση ως ο ανεξερεύνητος και ανεκμετάλλευτος πλούτος για κάθε δημόσια διοίκηση. Η εισήγηση θα χωριστεί σε 5 βασικούς αλληλοσυνδεόμενους άξονες:
1. Κυβερνητική πληροφορία
2. Right to Information Movement (Κίνημα για το Δικαίωμα στην Πληροφορία)
3. Open Government Data (Ανοιχτά Κυβερνητικά Δεδομένα)
4. Public Information Sector (Πληροφορία του Δημόσιου Τομέα)
5. Ευρωπαϊκή και Ελληνική Νομοθεσία

Συνοπτική παρουσίαση της έννοιας ηλεκτρονική διακυβέρνηση με αναφορά στις αρχές, τα μοντέλα και τ... more Συνοπτική παρουσίαση της έννοιας ηλεκτρονική διακυβέρνηση με αναφορά στις αρχές, τα μοντέλα και τους τύπους. Επίσης, γίνεται μια ιστορική αναδρομή στην πορεία της ηλεκτρονικής διακυβέρνησης στην Ελλάδα καθώς και στα επιχειρησιακά προγράμματα που στόχευαν στην εισαγωγή των ΤΠΕ στην ελληνική δημόσια διοίκηση και την αυτοματοποίηση των διαδικασιών.

Conference Presentations by Aikaterini Yannoukakou

Since the launch of “data.gov” in 2009 and “data.gov.uk” in 2010, there has been an intense disc... more Since the launch of “data.gov” in 2009 and “data.gov.uk” in 2010, there has been an intense discussion among politicians, public servants, academics, IT specialists and law specialists on open data and open government. Governments embraced open data as the new de facto revolution that will change the way of governing leading to a more open, transparent and participative government, thus democracy.
According to Open Knowledge Foundation open data is defined as “data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike”. However, this definition is not conclusive enough to qualify which data can be assign as open. For that reason, in 2007 the Open Government Working Group issued eight (8) principles with which open data should comply with. So the data must be complete, primary, timely, accessible, machine processable, non-discriminatory, non-proprietary, and license free.
The movement Open Government Data (OGD) demands greater transparency and liberation of data. Open government relies on the disclosure, accessibility and re-use of governmental information in any format available and by any means available. The core of open government is the data themselves. However, does the liberation of raw government data lead to open government? The main problem with OGD relies on the fact that they are released in various formats (i.e. csv, xml, pdf, excel), use different vocabularies and are accompanied by metadata of varying quality without adopting a uniform standardization prototype. This results into an inherent predicament for the access, re-use and combination of data from different sources in order to develop an application.
However, true open government –or in other words “democratic” government— requires a lot more than opening up data and leaving data somewhere on the Internet to be found. Open data is only an ingredient in the mix of open government siding with access to data, freedom of expression and press, right to information and re-use of public sector information.
So how can governments move from open data to open government? This paper’s objective is to denote under which circumstances the releasing of data can lead to open government and which is their relation with right to information, privacy and data protection, citizen engagement, records management and other cross cutting issues. Also, we will see how Linked Open Data can resolve the problems of access and re-use by facilitating the opening, linking, and reusing of data from heterogeneous sources. Finally, we will examine whether the Directive 2013/37E/EU and the Communication 2011/882/EC fill in the legislative void and enable the opening, access and re-used of public sector information.

Η υιοθέτηση των αρχών της ηλεκτρονικής διακυβέρνησης ως μέσο παροχής αξιόπιστων, ταχύτερων, αποδο... more Η υιοθέτηση των αρχών της ηλεκτρονικής διακυβέρνησης ως μέσο παροχής αξιόπιστων, ταχύτερων, αποδοτικότερων κι αποτελεσματικότερων υπηρεσιών δημόσιας διοίκησης συνεπάγεται εξ’ ορισμού τη χρήση των ΤΠΕ και της επαναχρησιμοποίησης της πληροφορίας που διατηρείται στις δημόσιες υπηρεσίες είτε αφορά την ίδια τη δημόσια διοίκηση είτε τις οντότητες που συναλλάσσονται μαζί της. Ο τρόπος λειτουργίας της δημόσιας διοίκησης αλλάζει ριζικά δεδομένου ότι απαιτείται οριζόντια ανταλλαγή πληροφοριών και ταυτόχρονη μετακίνηση προς περισσότερο προσωποκεντρικές και υπηρεσιακά ανεξάρτητες υπηρεσίες. Η ολοένα αυξανόμενη απαίτηση από το κοινό για μεγαλύτερη διαφάνεια και λογοδοσία των πεπραγμένων των κυβερνήσεων και της δημόσιας διοίκησης εν γένει ενισχύει τη μεταστροφή προς την υιοθέτηση πολιτικών ανοιχτών δεδομένων στη διακυβέρνηση. Ζητούμενο πλέον είναι η παροχή δυνατότητας μεγαλύτερης πρόσβασης σε μεγαλύτερο όγκο πληροφοριών που χαρακτηρίζονται δημόσιες με απώτερο στόχο τον έλεγχο των κυβερνόντων και των δημόσιων λειτουργών από τους πολίτες ώστε αφενός να επιτυγχάνεται η λογοδοσία τους και αφετέρου να αυξάνεται η συμμετοχικότητα των πολιτών στα κοινά και στη λήψη αποφάσεων. Σε αυτά τα πλαίσια τόσο η ΕΕ όσο και η Ελλάδα έχουν προχωρήσει στην υιοθέτηση νομοθετικού και ρυθμιστικού πλαισίου, το οποίο κατοχυρώνει αφενός τα πληροφοριακά δικαιώματα των πολιτών και αφετέρου καθορίζει τα σύννομα πλαίσια δημοσιοποίησης πληροφοριών που εμπεριέχονται σε δημόσια έγγραφα σεβόμενο τη σχετική νομοθεσία για την προστασία των προσωπικών δεδομένων. Συγκεκριμένα, ο Ν. 3861/2010 για τη Διαύγεια προβλέπει τη δημοσιοποίηση όλων των πράξεων διοικητικού χαρακτήρα στο πρόγραμμα Διαύγεια, ενώ ο Ν.3979/2011 για την ηλεκτρονική διακυβέρνηση προβλέπει τη δημιουργία δικτυακών τόπων για όλες τις υπηρεσίες του δημόσιου φορέα με την παράλληλη δημοσίευση όλων των εγγράφων σε αυτούς και την υποστήριξη ηλεκτρονικών υπηρεσιών επικοινωνίας και συναλλαγής με το κοινό.
Ταυτόχρονα, εγείρονται πολλά ζητήματα ιδιωτικότητας και προστασίας των προσωπικών δεδομένων στις πληροφορίες που εμπεριέχονται στα δημοσιοποιούμενα έγγραφα αλλά και στον καθορισμό του όρου «δημόσιο έγγραφο» ειδικά στο διαρκώς εξελισσόμενο τεχνολογικό περιβάλλον, λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τη νεοεισαχθείσα τεχνολογία των RFID που μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί στη διαχείριση και διακίνηση εγγράφων ανάμεσα στις δημόσιες υπηρεσίες.
Σκοπός της παρούσας εισήγησης είναι να παρουσιάσει την προβληματική προστασίας των δημοσιοποιούμενων προσωπικών δεδομένων αλλά και τις λύσεις που προκρίνονται για την καλύτερη δυνατή εξισορρόπηση μεταξύ της προστασίας της ιδιωτικότητας και της εξασφάλισης της διαφάνειας στη δημόσια διοίκηση.

Advances on Information Processing and Management, 2012

Eventhough governments worldwide is considered to be the biggest producer of information, it is n... more Eventhough governments worldwide is considered to be the biggest producer of information, it is not uncommon that the entities cannot have access to the information that concern them or further they are obliged to submit the same information repeatedly to different public organizations. However, the access to the information held by public administration is an institutional right of the entities. Nonetheless, governments have not always been willing to grant access to government information based on a variety of reasons to forbid the access, with national security to be the most common one. However, the re-use and dissemination of government information across government agencies and between agencies and the public is the cornerstone of electronic government. Under that scope, many countries have proceeded the last 20 years in adopting national policies for the use and access of government information. Greece has delayed in that field to be synchronised the European Union's recommendations. However the last five years, there has been efforts to move forward and close the gap with the rest Member-States by issuing a number of legislative and regulatory documents such as the Law 3448/2010 on the reuse of public sector information, the Law 3861/2010 on the obligatory publication of the legislative and regulatory documents produced by all governmental, administrative and local government agencies via Diavgeia”, the Law 3979/2011 on electronic government, and the Greek e-Government Interoperability Framework. The access to government information is a precondition to offer fast, transparent, reliable and qualitative services aiming to protect and promote the citizens’ basic democratic rights.

Electronic Government: The course in USA, European Union & Greece Electronic Government has al... more Electronic Government: The course in USA, European Union & Greece

Electronic Government has already passed to its second decade of maturity, and the change that has brought so far, even in the notion of distributive applications, is substantial, if not radical.
On legislative and regulative basis, the most integrated approach has been adopted by the United States, as since 1993 institutionalized interventions regarding the implementation of common national electronic government strategy have been enacted. The European Union, on the other hand, has adopted a series of initiatives aiming to the harmonization of the goals and actions of the Member – States regarding a unified approach to electronic government, whereas has instituted several directives which concern the implementation of ICTs and IT applications in public administration in general.
Finally, Greece, following the European Union’s initiatives, promulgated 3 main operational programs which circumscribed the adopted measures and actions of Greek Government in order to comply with the aims of the European initiatives so as to conform with the rest Member – States. Moreover, Greece has transcribed the European law into its national legislation and adjusted its legislation in order to be harmonized with the European law, without however to proceed to the adaption of a generalized regulative framework which would concern the integrated implementation of electronic government to the public administration.
The main purpose of this paper is to present and compare –where possible— the course that USA, European Union and Greece has followed so far towards completing the vision of electronic government giving priority to the study of the legislation and regulation adopted and to the solutions that could set an example for future reference.

In the age of electronic government the concern on the exploitation and exposure of personal data... more In the age of electronic government the concern on the exploitation and exposure of personal data is one of the primary reasons of hesitation on behalf of the citizens in using the e-government services and applications. On the other hand, information concerning the doings of the governments and public organizations is increasingly stored, handled, transmitted and communicated via electronic means and information systems.
Regardless of the reassurances given by experts on the increased and continuously evolving security measures, a legislative and regulatory framework on what consists personal data and which of the information gathered by governmental information systems and transmitted between different levels of public organizations can be accessed and under which circumstances, is a prerequisite for a well-structured and controlled informational environment.
In Greek legislative reality, three main laws define the complexity and interrelation between personal data and public information. Firstly, there is the newly established Law 3979/2011 on electronic government and, secondly, the Law 2472/1997 on personal data protection. Finally, there is the Law 3448/2006 on the further use of government information, whereas the Law 2690/1999 defines the term “public document” and the access to them (Article 5).
The main purpose of this paper is to point out where among these legal documents the delicate balance between the proper use and exploitation of personal data in order to enable access to government information and the processing of administrative procedures, and the protection of such data from maluse or abuse is concealed.

My doctoral thesis discusses the subject of the legislation that governs the full scale implement... more My doctoral thesis discusses the subject of the legislation that governs the full scale implementation of electronic government and the transformation of the public administration’s infrastructure to a more citizen-friendly one. The primary target of the thesis is to present the transfer of European Union’s legislation to Greek national law with a distinctive reference to personal data and the citizens’ right to access government information. In parallel, a comparative analysis of the legislative history that formed the existing statutory and regulatory framework of United States, European Union and Greece is illustrated.
The first part of the thesis includes a general introduction to electronic government defining its characteristics, pointing out its prons and cons, and marking the transformation of the public sector’s functions by the introduction of Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) and modern business models. The second part refers to the legislation framework of United States related to electronic government adopted since the first Clinton Administration in 1992 and onwards with references to earlier laws, where it is considered as necessary, as well as examples of good and/or bad practices of implementation.
Following to the third part, I refer to the most prominent EU legislation adopted by European Commission regarding electronic government and the introduction of ICTs for enabling the optimization of European citizens’ life and economic growth as being envisioned in Information Society layout and materialized via a number of Directives and Action Plans.
The last part is being composed by the delineation of the Greek legislative status quo regarding electronic government, and especially how EU legislation has transcribed to Greek legislation and regulation commencing from the White Paper “The Greek Strategy for an Information Society: A Tool for Employment, Development and Quality of Life” in 1995 and reaching the newly institutionalised Law 3979/2011 on Electronic Government along with commentary on whether the Greek legislation has evolved enough to encompass all the needed measures and make the necessary arrangements in order to enable the modernization of public administration and the introduction of Greece into the electronic government era. Finally, there is an evaluation of the legal progress Greece has made so far on the issue of electronic government comparing to the rest of EU Member-States and the United States.

As information is being defined the “an assemblage of data in comprehensible form capable of comm... more As information is being defined the “an assemblage of data in comprehensible form capable of communication and use”. Even the structure of knowledge pyramid denotes the importance that is being assigned to information, as it forms the basis to pass to knowledge (organised information) and wisdom (applied knowledge) levels. The hackneyed phrase “information is power” may sound “old-fashioned”, but it is an undeniable fact.
Politically speaking governments early detected the importance of collecting information either for the purposes of administration and governance or for military and espionage purposes. For instance, the creation of the national states in Europe at the 15th century and the great exploratory travels resulted in the collection of tax, demographic and commercial data on behalf of public administration. Further, the Ottoman Empire is known to have one of the most effective and detailed land registries in order to collect the attributable taxes, whereas in Greece is still used in cases of dispute as evidence of ownership. On the other hand, during the Cold War era both sides had developed a sophisticated network of espionage and information retrieval methods.
The aforementioned paradigms are indicative of the significance that the collection of information bares for both public administration and governments worldwide. Government information refers to information generated, collected, maintained, managed and held by public agencies during the performance their operational tasks. Therefore, the amount of information held by public administration is immense and most times inaccessible, as unfortunately, it is not uncommon that citizens cannot have access to information gathered by government agencies whether it concerns them or the workings of the government itself. This predicament is attributed either to the inherent tendency of public administration towards secrecy or any other number of restrictions such as copyright or patent techniques, monopolistic control, charging of access and the timely and equal availability of such information. It is not enough to be able access government information in general; the fundamental concern is to access the piece of information needed in timely and unrestricted manner.
Government information has been characterized as the “unexploited treasure” of public administration, which can result into enormous benefits for all parties involved, and mainly for public administration itself. The power of government information lies chiefly in its inherent economic value, which if exploited can boost economy and innovation, especially within this economic environment of recession. Public sector thrives of information that is not being further processed after its initial collection, which it can be proven to be valuable firstly to public administration itself when re-using it, and secondly to the private sector as an easier and more timely access can provide a comparative advantage to all stakeholders. Especially, the re-use of government information is a pillar for e-government in terms of procedures' simplification and redtape cutting.
Further, it offers authentic and reliable documentation of the administrative activities of any public agency. Especially in times of vivid social networking the exploitation of ICTs and telecommunications networks for publicizing and communicating government information is easier than ever before via one-stop governmental portals. This communication has a practical effect on all interested parties as it promotes the communication between the government and its citizenry, it facilitates the provision of services and minimizes the effort of access, especially in cases of real-time data transmission. For instance, the collaboration of the British company ITO World with Google to bring real-time update for any disruptions on the London Underground has been proven extremely useful to millions of passengers when scheduling their daily trips.
Moreover, government information bares a historical value because it serves as the “written” memory of public administration by depicting the history and the general context that public administration has been evolved throughout the years, and enables researchers to impartially review and evaluate the decisions of a government based on objective and reliable resources. For that reason, all developed countries have established special agencies –in most cases the national archives or any corresponding body-- authorized to undertake the task of preservation and access.
Open government is a further development that comes to amplify the concept of openness and transparency by the use of open data as a new condition for the communication and transaction with government agencies. Open government data are based on the availability of government information on a free and unrestricted manner always with respect to intellectual or industrial property issues as well as personal data protection and privacy ones.
Access to and openness of government information is an established constitutional right based both on the reasoning that it is being produced by taxpayers’ money and on the notion that“...is an inherent right or part of the social contract between the government and the governed to hold government accountable to its citizenry” as it records the workings of the administration, the public officials and the elected officials, and also it informs citizens on their rights and obligations.
Consequently, access to government information enhances and furthers the equality among the citizenry as it offers the opportunity to the public to be informed on government and policy issues that have immediate affect on everyday life, and therefore promoting social inclusion and effacing disparities, especially for the most unfortunate ones. A better informed citizen is a more participatory one that exercise better control to its government, and, thus, democracy is being enhanced. For example, Greek State institutionalized the free access to all issues of its Official Gazette via the website of National Printing Office with the Law 3861/2010, an act which has already be proven very beneficial as the access to all legislation from the foundation of the Greek State in 1833 is just a click away! Further, access to government information enables the public to reach a pool of “raw” informative material, which can be linked and interconnected in unlimited ways depending on everyone's background and cognitive level, which when combined with the enclosed economic value of this type of information could provide a comparative advantage in business terms.
Finally, access to government information enhances and furthers the government's transparency as the workings and the decision process is out at the open with the citizenry to be able to control the decisions and their grounds, and participate actively to the decision-making process by stating openly its opinions and points of view. That way the levels of accountability of government is being increased as well, because both public officials and elected ones have in mind that are being scrutinized and they must be able to prove the legitimacy of their actions in any given occasion. Transparency, accountability and participation enhance democracy especially in times of social, political and ethical crisis worldwide, and is one of the desired outcomes of the new governance era. Or as Thomas Jefferson stated “...information is the currency of democracy”.
Clearly, there are instances that government information should not be provided openly and without restrictions to the public as in case of homeland security, national defense and personal data protection. However, on the other hand, governments should not use these instances as a pretense for prohibiting access to government information.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the power of government information along with evidencing the underlining significance of it in this ever changing political, social, economic and technological context. Further, we seek to verify that the access to government information is, above all, an undeniable right of every citizen, which at the same time promotes equality and social inclusion as well as transparency and accountability by shaping better informed and a more actively involved citizens, which trust their government more and, thus, the government increases the legitimacy of its workings. Finally, we intend to present that the ever-changing technological environment is not a thread for providing and accessing government information, but instead can be a considerable ally on this front if the appropriate policy solutions are adopted beforehand.

Publications by Aikaterini Yannoukakou

Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition, 2014

The availability of and access to government information has been a major issue for governments a... more The availability of and access to government information has been a major issue for governments and public administrations as well as citizens and civil organizations worldwide. However, the facilitation of access to information generated and held by government agencies has not always been the case. Instead, there are many incidents through history demonstrating the inherent tendency of governments towards secrecy and opacity of their operations. Nevertheless, access to government information is an institutional right, which constitutes a precondition for the proper exercise of civic rights whereon the democratic governance springs, bears economic benefits for the public administration as well as to whoever deals with public administration, whereas, from the administrative point of view, the reuse of the public information may lead to faster and more efficient administration.
The first legislative document adopted in Europe providing for the access to public documents was the second part of “Freedom of Press Act” titled “On the Public Nature of Official Documents” adopted in 1766 by the Swedish government. However, the universal recognition of access to information as a right came in 1948 when the UN General Assembly adopted the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, which in Article 19 provided that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; … to seek, receive and impart information and ideas...”. From this point forward, the Right to Information (RTI) movement was born aiming to its recognition as a civil right because it springs from the right to expression under the notion that in order for an individual to be able to freely express ideas, opinions and thoughts, it should be able to freely formulate them, hence to be very well informed.
More recently, another movement made its appearance demanding greater transparency and liberation of data, the open government data (OGD). OGD is a technology-driven movement which relies on the disclosure, accessibility and re-use of government information in any format available and by any means available. Even though the history of OGD is considerably shorter than the RTI’s one, however it has managed to be one of the influential trends within governments and international organizations, as the unstructured government data are considered an unexploited treasure in terms of economic growth and innovation.

Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, Aug 2014

The right to information springs from the right to expression under the notion that in order for ... more The right to information springs from the right to expression under the notion that in order for an individual to be able to freely express ideas, opinions and thoughts, it should be able to freely formulate them, hence to be very well informed. The Right to Information (RTI) movement focuses on the fact that government information is being collected for the benefit of the public, and not for the benefit of the organisations themselves, and it constitutes the basis of a democratic regime. On the other hand, Open Government Data (OGD) refers to data produced or commissioned by government or government controlled entities, which can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone. The core of OGD movement lays into the proactive dissemination of unstructured raw data aiming firstly to innovation and economic growth by exploiting the given data to produce new products with added value, and secondly to accountability and transparency by providing access to data that bears political value on the way governments and administrations work. This paper attempts to present the underlined ideology of these two movements, which have fashioned the access to government information and to substantiate that the way to the future is a one-way street towards the greatest possible dissemination of government information as this can be established by the
synergy of RTI and OGD in order to preserve and promote the primary human and political right to receive information so as to be informed and able to freely express opinions, ideas and thoughts.

Δίκαιο Μέσων Επικοινωνίας και Ενημέρωσης, τχ. 1, 2014

Το πλήθος των ιατρικών δεδομένων που υφίστανται ηλεκτρονική επεξεργασία αυξάνεται ραγδαία στο σύ... more Το πλήθος των ιατρικών δεδομένων που υφίστανται ηλεκτρονική επεξεργασία αυξάνεται ραγδαία στο σύγχρονο τεχνολογικό και κοινωνικό περιβάλλον. Η στατιστική ανάλυση
των big data έχει ήδη αναπτυχθεί ώστε να βοηθήσει τους παρόχους υπηρεσιών υγείας και τους ερευνητές να επιταχύνουν την επιστημονική έρευνα, να διευκολύνουν την
εξατομικευμένη παροχή υγειονομικών υπηρεσιών και να βελτιώσουν την ποιότητα της υγειονομικής περίθαλψης. Η υιοθέτηση στρατηγικής προώθησης των open data
συμβάλλει ιδιαίτερα στην επίτευξη των παραπάνω στόχων. Από την άλλη πλευρά, η ανοιχτή πρόσβαση σε προσωπικά δεδομένα υγείας εγείρει σοβαρούς προβληματισμούς αναφορικά με ζητήματα ιδιωτικότητας και απορρήτου σχετικά με τη χρήση και χρησιμοποίηση της ιατρικής πληροφορίας από δημόσιες και ιδιωτικές οντότητες. Απέναντι σε αυτό το πολύπλοκο δίκτυο των τεχνολογικών απειλών, οι Ευρωπαίοι πολίτες επί του παρόντος προστατεύονται από ένα παλιό ρυθμιστικό πλαίσιο, δηλαδή την Οδηγία 95/46/ΕΚ, η οποία όμως τελεί υπό αναθεώρηση, ενόψει της Πρότασης Κανονισμού για την προστασία των προσωπικών δεδομένων της 28.1.2012. Το άρθρο αυτό επικεντρώνεται στα ζητήματα ιδιωτικότητας που προκύπτουν από τη χρήση συνόλων big data (big data sets) στον ιατρικό τομέα, επιχειρώντας να προσδιορίσει τα ανακύπτοντα προβλήματα ιδιωτικότητας.
Επιπλέον, εξετάζεται σε ποιο βαθμό η παραπάνω Πρόταση
Κανονισμού μπορεί να αντιμετωπίσει αυτά τα ζητήματα στο
πλαίσιο μιας σύγχρονης και επικαιροποιημένης νομοθετικής
ρύθμισης με στόχο την παροχή αποτελεσματικών υπηρεσιών
υγείας σε περιβάλλον ασφάλειας και σεβασμού των προσωπικών δεδομένων και της ιδιωτικότητας.

The events of 9/11 along with the bombarding in Madrid and London forced governments to resort to... more The events of 9/11 along with the bombarding in Madrid and London forced governments to resort to new structures of privacy safeguarding and electronic surveillance under the common denominator of terrorism and transnational crime fighting. Legislation as US PATRIOT Act and EU Data Retention Directive altered fundamentally the collection, processing and sharing methods of personal data, while it granted increased powers to police and law enforcement authorities concerning their jurisdiction in obtaining and processing personal information to an excessive degree. As an aftermath of the resulted opacity and the public outcry, a shift is recorded during the last years towards a more open governance by the implementation of open data and cloud computing practices in order to enhance transparency and accountability from the side of governments, restore the trust between the State and the citizens, and amplify the citizens' participation to the decision-making procedures. However, privacy and personal data protection are major issues in all occasions and, thus, must be safeguarded without sacrificing national security and public interest on one hand, but without crossing the thin line between protection and infringement on the other. Where this delicate balance stands, is the focal point of this paper trying to demonstrate that it is better to be cautious with open practices than hostage of clandestine practices.

Papers by Aikaterini Yannoukakou

Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014

Advances on Information Processing and Management, 2012

Electronic Government: The course in USA, European Union & Greece Electronic Government has al... more Electronic Government: The course in USA, European Union & Greece

Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition, 2014

Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, Aug 2014

Δίκαιο Μέσων Επικοινωνίας και Ενημέρωσης, τχ. 1, 2014

Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Third Edition

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014

Since the late 1980s and the early 1990s with the advent of Information Technology (IT), there ha... more Since the late 1980s and the early 1990s with the advent of Information Technology (IT), there has been a lot of discussion on how and with which methods IT applications could be incorporated to the public sector aiming to empower its operations, simplify its procedures and optimise its services. Especially from the middle 1990s onwards with the mass development of personal computers and the rapid penetration of web tools and the Internet to everyday life, the public sector worldwide found itself swinging between the "traditional" way of doing business and the increased introduction of IT. From that point forward, there has been numerous synchronized, and not, efforts to move public administration operations to an integrated electronic environment within which citizens and businesses could access, interact and transact with the governmental agencies in a seamless, open, 24/7 and round the clock manner, the so called "electronic government".

«Νομικές και κοινωνικές προεκτάσεις του Διαδικτύου σήμερα», (Θεσσαλονίκη, 7-8 Ιουνίου 2013),εκδόσεις Νομική Βιβλιοθήκη, 2013

Standards and Standardization: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, 2015

Eventhough governments worldwide is considered to be the biggest producer of information, it is n... more Eventhough governments worldwide is considered to be the biggest producer of information, it is not uncommon that the entities cannot have access to the information that concern them or further they are obliged to submit the same information repeatedly to different public organizations. However, the access to the information held by public administration is an institutional right of the entities. Nonetheless, governments have not always been willing to grant access to government information based on a variety of reasons to forbid the access, with national security to be the most common one. However, the re-use and dissemination of government information across government agencies and between agencies and the public is the cornerstone of electronic government. Under that scope, many countries have proceeded the last 20 years in adopting national policies for the use and access of government information. Greece has delayed in that field to be synchronised the European Union's recommendations. However the last five years, there has been efforts to move forward and close the gap with the rest Member-States by issuing a number of legislative and regulatory documents such as the Law 3448/2010 on the reuse of public sector information, the Law 3861/2010 on the obligatory publication of the legislative and regulatory documents produced by all governmental, administrative and local government agencies via Diavgeia", the Law 3979/2011 on electronic government, and the Greek e-Government Interoperability Framework. The access to government information is a precondition to offer fast, transparent, reliable and qualitative services aiming to protect and promote the citizens' basic democratic rights.

The amount of medical data is growing rapidly in the current technological and social environment... more The amount of medical data is growing rapidly in the current technological and social environment. Big data analytics are being developed to assist health service providers, doctors and researchers to accelerate scientific discovery, enable personalized medicine and improve the quality of health care. It is being underpinned that in order to achieve these objectives an open data strategy should be followed by public authorities allowing third parties to access medical data. This process though raises severe concerns over privacy issues relating to the use of medical information by private and public entities. Against this complex network of technology threats, European citizens are currently protected by a rather outdated regulatory framework, namely the Directive 95/46/EC, which however is under revision and hopefully is about to be replaced by a new, updated and more comprehensive Regulation. This paper conglomerates the presentation of research on privacy problems arising from the emergence of big data sets in medical sector by attempting to re-address the privacy problems in the environment of big data and open data policies in health sector and tries to examine to what extent the proposed data protection regulation can address these issues so as to create a modern and updated legal framework by introducing new rules that will provide greater legal certainty, enhance citizens trust in the use of their medical data, and ultimately achieve the goal of delivering efficient health services.

The amount of medical data is growing rapidly in the current technological and social environment... more The amount of medical data is growing rapidly in the current technological and social environment. Big data analytics are considered a highly powerful tool in assisting health service providers, researchers and patients to accelerate scientific discovery, enabling personalized medicine and improving the quality of healthcare. It is being underpinned that in order to achieve these objectives an open data strategy should be followed by public authorities allowing third parties to access medical data. This process though raises severe concerns over privacy issues relating to the use of medical information by both private and public entities. European Union trying to modernise its approach concerning personal data in general has introduced a proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation that specifically refers to and regulates health related information by introducing an enriched right to consent and the right to be forgotten. This paper conglomerates the privacy problems arising from the emergence of big data sets in medical sector as they are depicted in literature, and tries to examine to what extent the proposed Data Protection Regulation can address these issues so as to create a modern and updated legal framework by introducing new rules that will provide greater legal certainty, enhance citizens' trust in the use of their medical data, and ultimately achieve the goal of delivering efficient health services.