FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
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FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
 
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Good evening all,
I hope you are all enjoying the 2012 fed budget... To come back on a topic that lands here from time to time: could open data ease the FOI process. I bring to your attention a case where it would. Recently I ask (through an FOI) to Urgence-Santé, the paramedic organization in Québec, to get me all the road accidents within the province during the last years. I called them before hand to check that they had the data. Response today: In order to provide you the data, we have to process it. And because of article-I-don't-remember-the-number, a gov body doesn't have to comply to a request if the data has to be processed. And processing is mandatory: providing the raw data would include personal information (name, etc.). Such a limitation makes that a large part of the data under gov control (mostly within databases) cannot be accessed because it would require processing. So if it's not proactively opened, there's not real way to access it. (well let's be realistic here: the people in front of me did not want to give the data, the processing needed could have been done quite easily...) Clearly those types of requests will be more and more frequent as "data journalism" expands and they will clutter a little more the FOI process with, in general, limited success. Anyway, a Gazette journalist was a little better than I and got the data (well, only bikes accidents for the moment), from the SAAQ, the province insurance scheme. Here is his visualisation : http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/bike-accidents/index.html and mine http://blog.zonecone.ca/bike.php Steph |
Re: FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
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The idea of framing discussions as "open data vs FOI" is a head shaker. There's much more overlap and common ground. I
think it's a mistake to think that open data will replace FOI. Once
information is published, our information needs aren't satiated; new
questions emerge along with new information needs.
One
reason I emphasize FOI is because it gives you a statutory right to access
the data. That means that you decide the information you want to access rather than hoping you will get the data. If you're
not pleased with being denied access, there's a conflict resolution process
(e.g., an Information Commissioner). Quebec's law may be a bit behind the times if it doesn't allow you access to a dataset. Federally, I have acquired contents of a DB in CSV format. Ontario and Alberta's FOI laws are very unique because they have a "continual access" clause where people can access the data on a scheduled basis (e.g., every month) for
up to 2 years. From: Stéphane Guidoin <[hidden email]> To: civicaccess discuss <[hidden email]> Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 5:45:27 PM Subject: [CivicAccess-discuss] FOI vs Open data: a compelling case Good evening all, I hope you are all enjoying the 2012 fed budget... To come back on a topic that lands here from time to time: could open data ease the FOI process. I bring to your attention a case where it would. Recently I ask (through an FOI) to Urgence-Santé, the paramedic organization in Québec, to get me all the road accidents within the province during the last years. I called them before hand to check that they had the data. Response today: In order to provide you the data, we have to process it. And because of article-I-don't-remember-the-number, a gov body doesn't have to comply to a request if the data has to be processed. And processing is mandatory: providing the raw data would include personal information (name, etc.). Such a limitation makes that a large part of the data under gov control (mostly within databases) cannot be accessed because it would require processing. So if it's not proactively opened, there's not real way to access it. (well let's be realistic here: the people in front of me did not want to give the data, the processing needed could have been done quite easily...) Clearly those types of requests will be more and more frequent as "data journalism" expands and they will clutter a little more the FOI process with, in general, limited success. Anyway, a Gazette journalist was a little better than I and got the data (well, only bikes accidents for the moment), from the SAAQ, the province insurance scheme. Here is his visualisation : http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/bike-accidents/index.html and mine http://blog.zonecone.ca/bike.php Steph _______________________________________________ CivicAccess-discuss mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss |
Re: FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
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Well it's tightly linked with the laws of each province. Here the
resolution process is more like going to court facing an attorney.
I'll probably do it but it's not an easy one.
My point was that the FOI process is not a panacea either in a sense that there are some ways to avoid publication of the data. On the other hand, from what I see, when there is a large demand for some dataset, it's possible to get them opened. Today I had a look to data.gov.uk and there are tons of dataset that needs FOI here... and thus clutters FOI process. I agree it's no silverbullet... (My idea was not to frame open data vs FOI... even though it's the title of my mail :p It was more to provide an example and have some facts to think about where open data should be prefered and where FOI should be prefered) Steph Le 12-03-29 21:33, Mark Weiler a écrit :
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Re: FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
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Stéphane I would do the FOI others on the list have done so with other datasets, Daniel Haran is one who comes to mind, and others have also. I find their argument most intriguing and hope others do not immitate it, which means this is something we need to add in our lists of gov workarounds for not releasing data.
2012/3/29 Stéphane Guidoin <[hidden email]>
-- Tracey P. Lauriault 613-234-2805 |
Re: FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
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Anyone with some successful FOI in Québec here ? :)
While we are there and as a demonstration of the lack of willingness of Québec's body to comply to information access, The Gazette had to fight for 7 years to get the financial documents about the FINA World championship help at Montréal in 2006. http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Aquatics+meet+foulup+years+making/6382974/story.html Steph
Le 30 mars 2012 02:09, Tracey P. Lauriault <[hidden email]> a écrit : Stéphane I would do the FOI others on the list have done so with other datasets, Daniel Haran is one who comes to mind, and others have also. I find their argument most intriguing and hope others do not immitate it, which means this is something we need to add in our lists of gov workarounds for not releasing data. |
Re: FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
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Hey,
In the past I have gotten a successful FOI for all environmental fines in QUebec. However, I failed to get restaurant health inspection data. On a similar note, Quebec Ouvert just submitted a mémoire to the comission d'accès à l'information: Let us know what you think. You have until the end of the day to submit something too! On 2012-03-30, at 9:56 AM, Stéphane Guidoin wrote: Anyone with some successful FOI in Québec here ? :) |
Re: FOI vs Open data: a compelling case
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I've included our recommendations from the report below. Hopefully this isn't hijacking the thread. Our recommendations have to do with the overlapping objectives and intersections of use case of FOI and Open Data.
Le Québec peut prendre une position de leadership en intégrant une politique de données ouvertes dans ses lois d’accès à l’information. Pour cela, il faut clairement identifier l’obligation des départements et ministères de publier toute information et répondre à des demandes d’accès à l’information en format ouvert.
Cette procédure pourrait se concrétiser en plusieurs étapes : Etape 1 : 1. Proactivement rendre disponible toute information non nominative à travers un portail de données ouvertes (par exemple : donnees.quebec.gouv.qc.ca)
2. Adopter la licence Open Goverment (lien) pour les données de la province du Québec. 3. Inclure l’obligation de fournir des données brutes si demandées en vertu de la Loi d’accès à l’information. Obliger les départements à envoyer des fichiers XML, CSV ou autres formats ouverts si demandés dans la requête.
4. Toute information obtenue à travers une demande d’accès à l’information devrait comprendre une licence Open Governement, permettant au demandeur d’utiliser ces informations et de les redistribuer sans contraintes.
Etape 2 : 1. Offrir une liste en format ouvert de toutes les demandes d’accès à l’information au Québec qui ne touchent pas des informations nominatives, organisée par département, temps et réponse.
2. Modifier la loi sur l’accès à l’information pour intégrer ces recommandations et obliger la publication en format digital et ouvert des demandes et réponses d’accès à l’information. Et finalement, pour l’étape 3, nous recommandons :
1. Obliger tous les départements à accepter des demandes d’accès à l’information par courriel. 2. Offrir une liste centralisée de tous les courriels de tous les départements au Québec où l’on peut faire des demandes d’accès à l’information
3. Obliger tous les départements à répondre par courriel quand l’information n’est pas de nature confidentielle. 4. Modifier l’article 4 du Règlement sur la diffusion de l’information et sur la protection des renseignements personnels par les ministères. L’article 4 prévoit que “Un organisme public doit diffuser sur un site Internet les documents ou les renseignements suivants, dans la mesure où ils sont accessibles en vertu de la loi”. Ceci devrait être amendé pour déclarer : “Un organisme public doit diffuser sur un site Internet les documents ou les renseignements suivants dans un format ouvert avec une licence Open Government, dans la mesure où ils sont accessibles en vertu de la loi”.
Michael Lenczner CEO, Ajah http://www.ajah.ca 514-400-4500 1-888-406-2524 (AJAH) http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellenczner On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Jonathan Brun <[hidden email]> wrote:
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