Open Data, FOI and Time To Access
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Open Data, FOI and Time To Access
 
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This question is for David FreedomInfo.org reported on the recent International Conference of Information Commissioners hosted in Ottawa. The site reports: "Explaining his
disinterest in legal repairs, 'I just think FOIA is broken; the wait
time makes it broken…,' said David Eaves, a Canadian open government
advocate, who added that “efforts to repair it are at the margins” and
government has little incentive for reform." http://www.freedominfo.org/2011/10/views-on-open-data-contrast-during-icic-sessions/ David, I was wondering if you could comment on the quote? I know waiting can sometimes be a frustrating when using existing access laws but I tend to think of it also in terms of time saved. If it takes 6 months to get a dataset with FOI but 15+ years of hard f2f networking to get it otherwise (or maybe even never getting it), it seems like a good investment. Hopefully parliaments will upgrade their access laws to speed up the current lag we're getting from the FOInet. The question of incentive I think is important. Mark |
Re: Open Data, FOI and Time To Access
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Hi Mark,
Yes, that quote came out of either my talk - or, I think, during the Q&A. I think for many people a 6 month waiting time frame is the sign of a broken process. To be clear, I'm not saying that we'd be better with nothing, but I think that for many people that result is pretty terrible and that their expectations is that it should happen much faster - like in days, if even that. I think that the FOI community has not been engaging how technology could and should be radically changing the way FOI works and how quick requests could be turned around (or how documents should be automatically be made public upon creation or within a much shorter time period). I'm mostly arguing that we should be radically resetting expecations around FOI... Hope this is helpful? cheers, dave On 11-10-19 10:14 AM, Mark Weiler wrote:
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Re: Open Data, FOI and Time To Access
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David, People use the media as a political platform to claim FOI is broken to gather political support for reform. For those unfamiliar with FOI, this means they only hear discouraging messages. For example, I'm not entirely sure if 6 months is "broken" because it depends on what the documents are and how much return they provide. Like I said, if informal access via f2f networking took multiple years and building up social/political capital, then a $5.00 application fee + a stamp is a bargain if using Canada's ATI Act. (In the UK, Scotland, New Zealand and multiple countries, we can access the FOInet via email.) Rather than focus on it being "broken", I think a better question is when is the FOInet up, down, or having lag time. And 50% of the traffic on the FOInet at the federal level is from businesses. Re: FOI and technology I think a lot of the FOI community focuses on repairing lower layers of the FOInet (e.g. the legislation, administration) that are needed to provide robust and reliable service for the application layer. But some higher level applications are being developed. There's whatdotheyknow.com in the United Kingdom where something like 10% of FOIs received by the UK central state departments come through this site. Multiple installations of the Alaveteli application (www.alaveteli.org) are being implemented throughout the European Union right now. And there is www.muckrock.com in the United States. In terms of protocols, I would love to see government departments quickly send FOI applicants some meta-data about the documents first (via email/webpage) and then allow them to select only relevant documents. That would make navigating the FOInet much quicker. To give people a sense of the scale of the FOInet that is emerging: Before 1966 http://www.opengovernmentrecords.net/drupal/sites/default/files/WorldMap-pre_0.jpg After July 2011 http://www.opengovernmentrecords.net/drupal/sites/default/files/WorldMap-Post_July_2011.jpg What do you think the expectations around FOI should be? Mark From: David Eaves <[hidden email]> To: Mark Weiler <[hidden email]> Cc: "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]> Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 3:46:50 AM Subject: Re: Open Data, FOI and Time To Access
Hi Mark,
Yes, that quote came out of either my talk - or, I think, during the Q&A. I think for many people a 6 month waiting time frame is the sign of a broken process. To be clear, I'm not saying that we'd be better with nothing, but I think that for many people that result is pretty terrible and that their expectations is that it should happen much faster - like in days, if even that. I think that the FOI community has not been engaging how technology could and should be radically changing the way FOI works and how quick requests could be turned around (or how documents should be automatically be made public upon creation or within a much shorter time period). I'm mostly arguing that we should be radically resetting expecations around FOI... Hope this is helpful? cheers, dave On 11-10-19 10:14 AM, Mark Weiler wrote:
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