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According to this page:

Data itself is not copyrightable.

For instance, demographic counts, weather measurements, phone numbers, chemical structures, currency values, facts about individuals and events, and similar types of factual information may be used without permission.

From this, it seems like any type of publicly available data can be used to create visualizations, even without asking for permission. Is that true?

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Yes and no

Your list of items is generally facts which may be used without anything attached, but some facts are different:

phone numbers

Phone numbers are PII - personally identifying information - and you are possibly limited in what you may do with such PII. It also doesn't matter where you are, but where the data subject is to get you in trouble:

If the Data subject even is in the EU, you might be banned from processing the PII without permission of the data subject or be in violation of .

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  • I didn't even catch that, good point! So, other than personal information, I should be good to use it?
    – ㅤㅤㅤ
    Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 9:52
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    @Tamas The GDPR will not apply to a person or entity that is not located in the EU, and does not offer or provide a service "targeted" at EU residents. In general there is no privacy protection for PII in the US. Medical information is protected by HIPAA. Identity theft is a crime. Various specific kinds of data are protected, such as library check-out records. Some states have data protection laws somewhat similar to the GDPR, like CA. Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 14:35
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You are correct that facts in general are not protected by copyright, and most raw data are facts.

However, a collection of data may be protected by copyright as to its selection and organization. A use which copies such selection might possibly be copyright infringement.

If data constitutes a trade secret it may be protected as such, and "improper" access might be unlawful. This would not apply to publicly available data or collections of data.

If, to access a data set, one must sign or agree to a contract, that contract may limit the use of such data. Again, this would not apply to most publicly available data.

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