Getting information out there: Proactive Disclosure, Technology & a (possible) Future for FOI

Getting information out there: Proactive Disclosure, Technology & a (possible) Future for FOI Andrew Ecclestone andrew@ecclestone.net 7th ICIC - Ottawa - 5 October 2011

Further Reading What happens when transparency meets blame-avoidance? Christopher Hood Public Management Review Volume 9, Issue 2, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/hd-wbi-proactive http://tinyurl.com/ch-trans-blame

Further Reading http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/government/news-events/007001-1000-e.html

From this... to this...

to this.

Emails

NZ Public Records Act 2005 17 Requirement to create and maintain records 1. (1) Every public office and local authority must create and maintain full and accurate records of its affairs, in accordance with normal, prudent business practice, including the records of any matter that is contracted out to an independent contractor. 2. (2) Every public office must maintain in an accessible form, so as to be able to be used for subsequent reference, all public records that are in its control, until their disposal is authorised by or under this Act or required by or under another Act. 3. (3) Every local authority must maintain in an accessible form, so as to be able to be used for subsequent reference, all protected records that are in its control, until their disposal is authorised by or under this Act. 18 Authority required to dispose of public records and protected records 1. (1) No person may dispose of, or authorise the disposal of, public records or protected records except with the authority of the Chief Archivist, given in accordance with the provisions of this Act. 2. (2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the disposal of a public record or a protected record is required by or under another Act.

NZ Public Records Act 2005 61 Offences Every person commits an offence who wilfully or negligently 1. (a) damages a public record; or 2. (b) disposes of or destroys a public record otherwise than in accordance with the provisions of this Act; or 3. (c) contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of this Act or any regulations made under it. 62 Penalties 1. (1) Every person who commits an offence against section 61 is liable, 1. (a) in the case of an individual, to a fine not exceeding $5,000: 2. (b) in every other case, to a fine not exceeding $10,000. 2. (2) A person convicted of an offence against section 61 may, in addition to any penalty imposed for the offence, be prohibited by order of the court from having access to Archives New Zealand for any period that the court thinks fit.

UK FOI Act 2000 77 Offence of altering etc.records with intent to prevent disclosure Where 1. (a) a request for information has been made to a public authority, and 2. (b) under this Act or the Data Protection Act 1998, the applicant would have been entitled to communication of any information in accordance with that section, any person to whom this subsection applies is guilty of an offence if he alters, defaces, blocks, erases, destroys or conceals any record held by the public authority, with the intention of preventing the disclosure by that authority of all, or any part, of the information to the communication of which the applicant would have been entitled.

http://www.foiman.com/archives/403

Figure 1: How has the importance of records management changed in your organization over the last 2-3 years? (N=659, 10+emps, non-trade) E-Discovery QuickTime and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture. Figure 6: Thinking about the compliance benefits of Records Management, which of the following are the TWO most important compliance drivers in your organization? (N=650) AIIM - Association for Information and Image Management QuickTime and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture. http://www.aiim.org/research/industry-watch/erm-and-ediscovery-2010

E-Discovery Figure 18: How long would a legal discovery collection process take across your paper/electronic records and documents? (N=580, range of days/months given) More than one month Average Paper-based records and documents Electronic records and documents - without RM system 25% 17.0 days 35% 24.7 days Electronic records and documents - with RM system 20% 12.4 days http://www.aiim.org/research/industry-watch/erm-and-ediscovery-2010

EDRMS Success Factors / Barriers Table 1 - Success factors Table 2 - Barriers Factors F Barriers F Adequate and on-going training and support 135 User resistance 93 Top management support 134 Familiarity and comfort with paper 90 Staff recordkeeping awareness and practice 105 Poor recordkeeping practices 66 Excellent strategies of change management 102 Lack of top management support 66 Good project management 96 New culture of "sharing information" such as emails with others 58 Motivated great implementation team 85 Bad system design 39 Clear business vision and plan 79 Structure of organisations 27 System performance monitor and management 78 Other 16 Well-prepared File plan 71 Lack of funding 14 Others 16 Source: EDRMS Implementations in the Australian Public Sector http://tinyurl.com/ausedrms09

A Perennial Topic Access to Information Review Task Force Report 7, 2001: The major assumption throughout the report is that the level of access to government information is totally dependent upon an information management environment in which: - Staff are aware of their responsibilities and trained accordingly, and that knowledge about information management requirements is part of the culture of government institutions; - - The technology infrastructure enables access to governmentwide information resources.

Purposes - Finland Finland 1999 Act to promote openness and good practice in information management to provide individuals and corporations with an opportunity to monitor the exercise of public authority and use of public resources to freely form an opinion to influence the exercise of public authority to protect their rights and interests. S. 3

Request making sites

Request making sites http://tinyurl.com/foi-esites

FYI.org

FYI.org

FYI.org

FYI.org

FYI.org

WhatDoTheyKnow

WhatDoTheyKnow

Infomex

Infomex

Infomex 3,000 SOLICITUDES DE INFORMACIÓN Y RESPUESTAS POR SEMANA Del 24 de junio al 15 de septiembre de 2011 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0 24 al 30 de jun 01 al 07 de jul 08 al 14 de jul 15 al 21 de jul 22 al 28 de jul 29 de jul al 04 de ago 05 al 11 de ago 12 al 18 de ago 19 al 25 de ago 26 de ago al 01 de sept 02 al 08 de sept 09 al 15 de sept Solicitudes Respuestas

Got to be of use to one person "You have to understand the selfish user" - user #1 has to find the system useful or you won't get user #2. Systems that only become useful when lots of people are using them usually fail, because there's no incentive for people to contribute themselves. The real trick is to make the user base you have want to invite more people in to the system. Joshua Schachter, founder of del.icio.us

Imagine if, instead of photos, you were viewing documents Participation tools http://db.tt/idwe5yka

NZ Timeliness

UK Timeliness

Lalit Kumar Mehta, May 2008. Kameshwar Yadav, June 2008. Venkatesh, 12 April 2009. Satish Shetty, 13 January 2010. Vishram Laxman Dodiya, 11 February 2010. Shashidhar Mishra, 14 February 2010. Sola Ranga Rao, 11 April 2010. Vitthal Gite, 18 April 2010. Dattatreya Patil, 22 May 2010. Amit Jethwa, 20 July 2010. Ramdas Patil Ghadegaonkar, a milk seller from Maharasthra, was murdered on 27 August 2010. He was using the right to information law to unearth information about illegal dredging of sand from the local Godavari river. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12696470

Spectrum of Proactive Disclosure Affirmative - Structured but Flexible - Unstructured Spontaneous

Affirmative publication

Non-FOI Disclosure Requirements Instrumental transparency

Expenses claims - Panama

Mexican Federal FOI Law

Web portal for access to Information required to be published

Use of the Mexican Portal Distribución de consultas al Portal de Obligaciones de Transparencia por Fracción del Artículo 7 de la LFTAIPG Del 15 de febrero de 2007 al 15 de septiembre de 2011 Fracción III, directorio de servidores públicos 29.1 Fracción XIII, contratos 21.5 Fracción IV, remuneración mensual por puesto Fracción I, estructura orgánica Fracción XII, concesiones, permisos o autorizaciones otorgados Fracción XVII, información adicional de interés Fracción VIII, trámites requisitos y formatos Fracción VII, servicios que ofrecen Fracción XIV, marco normativo Fracción V, domicilio de la Unidad de Enlace Fracción IX, presupuesto asignado Fracción VI, metas y objetivos de las Unidades Administrativas Fracción X, resultados de auditorías Fracción II, facultades de las Unidades Administrativas Fracción XI, programas de subsidio Fracción XV, informes Fracción XVI, mecanismos de participación ciudadana 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.0 1.6 1.4 1.2 1.2 1.0 0.7 0.4 0.2 6.7 11.6 14.7 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 Porcentaje

Use of the Mexican Portal Las 10 Dependencias o Entidades con mayor número de consultas al Portal de Obligaciones de Transparencia Del 15 de febrero de 2007 al 15 de septiembre de 2011 SERVICIO DE ADMINISTRACIÓN TRIBUTARIA (en proceso de actualización) INSTITUTO MEXICANO DEL SEGURO SOCIAL en proceso de reestructura PROCURADURÍA GENERAL DE LA REPÚBLICA SECRETARÍA DE EDUCACIÓN PÚBLICA SECRETARÍA DE AGRICULTURA, GANADERÍA, DESARROLLO RURAL, PESCA Y ALIMENTACIÓN COMISIÓN NACIONAL DEL AGUA SECRETARÍA DE ECONOMÍA INSTITUTO FEDERAL DE ACCESO A LA INFORMACIÓN Y PROTECCIÓN DE DATOS en proceso de reestructuración PETRÓLEOS MEXICANOS (CORPORATIVO) SECRETARÍA DE LA DEFENSA NACIONAL 0 500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 3,000,000 Otras fracciones Fracción I, estructura orgánica Fracción IV, remuneración mensual por puesto Fracción XIII, contratos Fracción III, directorio de servidores públicos

Structured but flexible: Publication Schemes

ICO findings re: police publication schemes Some good practices, but Websites were sometimes not well-maintained or updated on a regular basis. For example an authority s last senior management meeting information was over 6 months old; Messages were found that said information would be available soon without providing any timescales; Broken links, in a few cases this meant that we found an authority did not meet their section 19 obligations because the link to the information did not work. At other times it was frustrating that information which should be accessible was not because of a failed link. Information which was stated to be available was not because even when a site s search facility was used, the information could not be found.

ICO findings re: police publication schemes During the course of the monitoring it became clear that some of the public authorities had not made key people aware of their proactive dissemination responsibilities. A practical example of this was seen where information was listed in a publication scheme as available by contacting the authority. However when this was done, the authority instead of providing the information, treated the issue as a full FOI request under Part 1 of the legislation. http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/library/freedom_of_information/research_and_reports/police_sector_ps_monitoring_report.ashx

Australian Federal Schemes - Consistency to aid the user

Less structured Proactive Disclosures

NZ Ministerial Credit Cards

NZ Ministerial Credit Cards

DIA - Gambling Act Review

Literate We didn t build libraries for a literate citizenry. We built libraries to help citizens become literate. Today we build open data portals not because we have public policy literate citizens, we build them so that citizens may become literate in public policy. David Eaves - need for intermediaries; legitimising civil society and media role in acting on behalf of public http://eaves.ca/2010/06/10/learning-from-libraries-the-literacy-challenge-of-open-data/

Re-use Key to the future of FOI - ensuring greater value is obtained from the creation of the document / collation of the information and the work done (if any) to disclose it. Need to remove provisions in FOI and other laws that would make the requester liable for breach of copyright - e.g., NZ Official Information Act section 48(2) Use by governments of liberal licenses - e.g. CC- BY - see NZGOAL, UK Government Licensing Framework

Useful x Usable = Used

R.O.I.

Australian DPMC file list

Registers of Documents - Norway

Registers of Documents - Norway

Know where you want to go? Understand what will achieve effective outcomes for public authorities and government, as well as requesters

Logic Modelling

Desired Outcomes? Better record keeping and information management Reduction in wasted spending and inefficiency Higher quality public administration Government welcomes citizen participation in developing policy and plans Better services for the public Increased public and international confidence in government

Credits & More Reading ico.gov.uk itspublicknowledge.info freedominfo.org foia.blogspot.com foi-privacy.blogspot.com foiman.com www.humanrightsinitiative.org Cartoons by kind permission of Chris Slane. For licensing contact chris@slane.co.nz