Open data versus ATIs

[Kent Mewhort]

Many of you might find this new talk from the Berkman Center interesting.  Felipe Heusser discusses the differences in policies and practices behind FOI legislation (ATIs in Canada) versus open data, particularly as they address transparency:  http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/02/heusser.  In short, he argues that FOI is obsolete -- make way for open data!

Kent

[Glen Newton]

FOI requests can include asking for the emails of a particular person
in government that discuss a particular subject.
IF the subject is not of a sensitive nature (national security, trade
secrets, cabinet confidentiality, ongoing legal issue, etc), then a
person has to go through the email and generate the request
information.

This is not a situation where open data is a solution, as asking for
the emails of all public servants is not realistic.

Or is it?

Could all public servant emails be made public, say, 2 years after
they are created?

I think this might not be successful:  I am thinking of the impact of
the Conservative governments 'directive' to not take notes in
meetings, so that these notes could not be FOI'ed, Would this cause a
similar information in emails?

"'The first thing that's said is ‘No note-taking, no recordings,
nothing. We don't want to see anything in writing on this.'"
  http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/is-this-the-answer-to-access-requests-stop-keeping-records/article1480151/?service=mobile

"There appear to be five main causes of delay in processing access
requests: inadequate resources in Access to Information/Privacy offices (ATIP);
chronic tardiness in the retrieval of records due to poor records management and
staff shortages in offices of primary interest (OPIs); difficulties encountered
during the consultation process with third parties and other government
institutions; top-heavy approval processes, including too much worry over
politically sensitive requests and too frequent holdups in ministers’
offices; and
poor communications with requesters to clarify access requests. What continues
to be troubling is the culture of secrecy at the federal level. Many
bureaucrats will
not take meeting notes. Also, while whistleblower protection has improved, the
culture of fear continues to exist within the public service, given the ultimate
negative effects to ones career if one formally reports abnormalities and
wrongdoings in the workplace."
- https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=%22inadequate%20resources%20in%20access%20to%20information%2Fprivacy%20offices%22&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.transparency.ca%2FNew%2FFiles%2F2008-New-20080130-TIVenezuelaresponses.pdf&ei=GbU1T4qGCMqw0AG807C2Ag&usg=AFQjCNGji2348EdciVYmBn_NPH68Stj49g&sig2=3pT0EfWKJEYsQ4hqfu2-CA&cad=rja

-Glen Newton

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 6:45 PM, Kent Mewhort <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Many of you might find this new talk from the Berkman Center interesting.
> Felipe Heusser discusses the differences in policies and practices behind
> FOI legislation (ATIs in Canada) versus open data, particularly as they
> address transparency:
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/02/heusser.  In short, he
> argues that FOI is obsolete -- make way for open data!
>
> Kent
>
> _______________________________________________
> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

--
-
http://zzzoot.blogspot.com/
-

[Stéphane Guidoin]

Hi there,

Well, for the few ATI requests I did (mainly at the municipal level), it
could (even should) have been open data: financial statements, raw
statistical data, etc.

 From what I saw, the process is still designed for how it worked 20
years ago: everything is though to ask for a _paper_ document. Thus,
when I asked for database content, it was really difficult to get
anything. So from what I saw, there are some improvements to be done in
the way information is handled nowadays.

Now for the sake of the discussion let's remove the mails and personnal
communication and just keep in the internal reports, raw data, etc,
which is already a lot. These are zillions of documents. How could we
seriously expect to find our way within so many data when we consider
how difficult it is to find our way in the current open data portal (or
even the statscan and geobase sites).

Even though I think open data could help the ATI system, I wonder how
realistic it is to have all this gov data open.

Cheers

Steph

Le 12-02-10 19:30, Glen Newton a écrit :

> FOI requests can include asking for the emails of a particular person
> in government that discuss a particular subject.
> IF the subject is not of a sensitive nature (national security, trade
> secrets, cabinet confidentiality, ongoing legal issue, etc), then a
> person has to go through the email and generate the request
> information.
>
> This is not a situation where open data is a solution, as asking for
> the emails of all public servants is not realistic.
>
> Or is it?
>
> Could all public servant emails be made public, say, 2 years after
> they are created?
>
> I think this might not be successful:  I am thinking of the impact of
> the Conservative governments 'directive' to not take notes in
> meetings, so that these notes could not be FOI'ed, Would this cause a
> similar information in emails?
>
> "'The first thing that's said is ‘No note-taking, no recordings,
> nothing. We don't want to see anything in writing on this.'"
>    http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/is-this-the-answer-to-access-requests-stop-keeping-records/article1480151/?service=mobile
>
> "There appear to be five main causes of delay in processing access
> requests: inadequate resources in Access to Information/Privacy offices (ATIP);
> chronic tardiness in the retrieval of records due to poor records management and
> staff shortages in offices of primary interest (OPIs); difficulties encountered
> during the consultation process with third parties and other government
> institutions; top-heavy approval processes, including too much worry over
> politically sensitive requests and too frequent holdups in ministers’
> offices; and
> poor communications with requesters to clarify access requests. What continues
> to be troubling is the culture of secrecy at the federal level. Many
> bureaucrats will
> not take meeting notes. Also, while whistleblower protection has improved, the
> culture of fear continues to exist within the public service, given the ultimate
> negative effects to ones career if one formally reports abnormalities and
> wrongdoings in the workplace."
> - https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=%22inadequate%20resources%20in%20access%20to%20information%2Fprivacy%20offices%22&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.transparency.ca%2FNew%2FFiles%2F2008-New-20080130-TIVenezuelaresponses.pdf&ei=GbU1T4qGCMqw0AG807C2Ag&usg=AFQjCNGji2348EdciVYmBn_NPH68Stj49g&sig2=3pT0EfWKJEYsQ4hqfu2-CA&cad=rja
>
> -Glen Newton
>
> On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 6:45 PM, Kent Mewhort<[hidden email]>  wrote:
>> Many of you might find this new talk from the Berkman Center interesting.
>> Felipe Heusser discusses the differences in policies and practices behind
>> FOI legislation (ATIs in Canada) versus open data, particularly as they
>> address transparency:
>> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/02/heusser.  In short, he
>> argues that FOI is obsolete -- make way for open data!
>>
>> Kent
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>
>

[Kent Mewhort]

Steph, I think putting all the data in a structured metadata system, such as Freebase, would go a long way towards organizing such massive and disparate quantities of data.

However, at the end of the day, we need both systems.  Even in an ideal situation where the government, by default, places all documents and datasets online, I'd still want a judicially-reviewable request system where citizens can challenge the discretion of the government to hold back documents for purposes such as the "security of Canada".

Of course, this ideal situation is a long ways off.  Right now, what I fail to see rhyme or reason for, is why the government cannot openly release all information requested through ATIs.  This information is already cleared through all the requisite scrutiny of security and privacy checks.  They're no excuse for the government not putting a response online at the same time it sends the response to the ATI requestor.

Kent

2012/2/10 Stéphane Guidoin <[hidden email]>

Hi there,

Well, for the few ATI requests I did (mainly at the municipal level), it could (even should) have been open data: financial statements, raw statistical data, etc.

>From what I saw, the process is still designed for how it worked 20 years ago: everything is though to ask for a _paper_ document. Thus, when I asked for database content, it was really difficult to get anything. So from what I saw, there are some improvements to be done in the way information is handled nowadays.

Now for the sake of the discussion let's remove the mails and personnal communication and just keep in the internal reports, raw data, etc, which is already a lot. These are zillions of documents. How could we seriously expect to find our way within so many data when we consider how difficult it is to find our way in the current open data portal (or even the statscan and geobase sites).

Even though I think open data could help the ATI system, I wonder how realistic it is to have all this gov data open.

Cheers

Steph

Le 12-02-10 19:30, Glen Newton a écrit :

FOI requests can include asking for the emails of a particular person
in government that discuss a particular subject.
IF the subject is not of a sensitive nature (national security, trade
secrets, cabinet confidentiality, ongoing legal issue, etc), then a
person has to go through the email and generate the request
information.

This is not a situation where open data is a solution, as asking for
the emails of all public servants is not realistic.

Or is it?

Could all public servant emails be made public, say, 2 years after
they are created?

I think this might not be successful:  I am thinking of the impact of
the Conservative governments 'directive' to not take notes in
meetings, so that these notes could not be FOI'ed, Would this cause a
similar information in emails?

"'The first thing that's said is ‘No note-taking, no recordings,
nothing. We don't want to see anything in writing on this.'"
  http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/is-this-the-answer-to-access-requests-stop-keeping-records/article1480151/?service=mobile

"There appear to be five main causes of delay in processing access
requests: inadequate resources in Access to Information/Privacy offices (ATIP);
chronic tardiness in the retrieval of records due to poor records management and
staff shortages in offices of primary interest (OPIs); difficulties encountered
during the consultation process with third parties and other government
institutions; top-heavy approval processes, including too much worry over
politically sensitive requests and too frequent holdups in ministers’
offices; and
poor communications with requesters to clarify access requests. What continues
to be troubling is the culture of secrecy at the federal level. Many
bureaucrats will
not take meeting notes. Also, while whistleblower protection has improved, the
culture of fear continues to exist within the public service, given the ultimate
negative effects to ones career if one formally reports abnormalities and
wrongdoings in the workplace."
- https://encrypted.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=%22inadequate%20resources%20in%20access%20to%20information%2Fprivacy%20offices%22&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.transparency.ca%2FNew%2FFiles%2F2008-New-20080130-TIVenezuelaresponses.pdf&ei=GbU1T4qGCMqw0AG807C2Ag&usg=AFQjCNGji2348EdciVYmBn_NPH68Stj49g&sig2=3pT0EfWKJEYsQ4hqfu2-CA&cad=rja

-Glen Newton

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 6:45 PM, Kent Mewhort<[hidden email]>  wrote:

Many of you might find this new talk from the Berkman Center interesting.
Felipe Heusser discusses the differences in policies and practices behind
FOI legislation (ATIs in Canada) versus open data, particularly as they
address transparency:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/02/heusser.  In short, he
argues that FOI is obsolete -- make way for open data!

Kent

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

_______________________________________________
CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss

[Mark Weiler-2]

Kent - the Felipe Heusser seminar video is excellent. It is definitely worth watching the presentation and questions.

As background for those who might be interested in watching it, the video is of a lunch seminar hosted on Feb 7th at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. The presenter is a visiting fellow and current PhD candidate at the London School of Economics.

Kent, while he starts the presentation saying that FOI is obsolete, by the end of the seminar he says he thinks FOI and Open Gov Data are complementary.   This change occurs because during his presentation he skirts around the fundamental difference between current open gov data policies and current FOI laws. When it comes down to it, the open government data policies (that I've heard of) are based on a few elected people  (e.g., prime minister, premier, city council, etc.) ultimately deciding what info people can access (hence all the consulting that goes on). Whereas FOI legislation is about individuals deciding what info they will access.  The other participants in the presentation recognize this and draw it to his attention at 38:00 and then again at 41:00 and again at 49:30 and again at 52:00 and 63:30.  He responds to at 50:10 and 65:00.

I think an illuminating discussion is not about FOI legislation being obsolete but about how to integrate the best of Open Gov Data and FOI. This point is made by a participant at 64:35.  Necessary to this discussion are questions of how to make public information more usable to an increasing number of people (e.g. Michael Gurstein's notion of effective use).

Mark

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/02/heusser