Sutaj Estok: Some Open Data, Including Land-registry Services, Should Have Fees

Bratislava, February 28 (TASR) - Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD) stated on Friday that in relation to the restoration of land-registry services, access to certain open data should entail charges, following the example of Western Europe, while opposition MP Jan Hargas (Progressive Slovakia/PS) stated that the restoration isn't complete and that only a temporary solution is involved here. "When you look at how the land registry works in Austria, for example, if someone wants to find out who owns a particular parcel, they must first be registered," said the interior minister, adding that users have to pay the appropriate administrative fee for this service. "I think this is a direction in which we could go," he added, also mentioning that he could imagine compensating people for loss of access to the land registry. Hargas expressed appreciation for the communication from the new leadership of the Geodesy, Cartography, and Cadastre Office of Slovakia (UGKK), but he noted that many questions remain unanswered. "First, when will the land registry truly function as fully as it used to? Secondly, what happened to the sensitive data about citizens during the cyber-attack? Were some of these data stolen?, and could they potentially be exploited by hackers?" he said, also noting that people have spent the past two months standing in long queues at government offices and paying fees for something that was previously free, available online and immediate. On Friday, the head of UGKK Lucia Gocnikova announced at a press conference that land-registry services and priority services were being restored as of Friday. At this moment, the office has access to all current data, but services are being restored using back-up and improvised solutions. lin/df