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FOI and Open Data |
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Mark Weiler, is an FOI expert who has kindly contributed resources and his time to help Harvey understand FOI issues in preparation for the OGP meetings in Brazil. Below is a talk he shared from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society entitled Open Government Data for Open Accountability by Felipe Heusser, Berkman Center Fellow.
Mark provides some context about the content of the video here:
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.
While he starts the presentation saying that FOI is obsolete, by the end of the seminar he says he thinks FOI and Open Gov Data are complementary.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 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). |
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Gurstein on Open Data |
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Michael Gurstein endorsed the CCSD application for OGP and will also be attending the meetings in Brazil. He kindly forwarded some of his open data articles. He will be joining Harvey Low as part of an IDRC delegation sponsored by Latin America and he will be bringing forward an ICT for Development perspective.
Open Data: Empowering the Empowered or Effective Data Use for Everyone?
September 2, 2010
Efforts to extend access to “data” will perhaps inevitably create a “data divide” parallel to the oft-discussed “digital divide” between those who have access to data which could have significance in their daily lives and those who don’t. Associated with this will one can assume, will be many of the same background conditions which have been identified as likely reasons for the digital divide—that is differences in income, education, literacy and so on. However, just as with the “digital divide”, these divisions don’t simply stop or be resolved with the provision of digital (or data) “access”. What is necessary as well, is that those for whom access is being provided are in a position to actually make use of the now available access (to the Internet or to data) in ways that are meaningful and beneficial for them.
Open Data (2): Effective Data Use
September 9, 2010
What the above analysis suggests is that for “open data” to have a meaningful and supportive impact on the poor and marginalized, direct intervention is required to ensure that elements currently absent in the local technology and social ecosystem are in fact, made available..
Are the Open Data Warriors Fighting for Robin Hood or the Sheriff?: Some Reflections on OKCon 2011 and the Emerging Data Divide
July 3, 2011
I spent the last couple of days at a fascinating (and frightening) event in Berlin—OKCon—a convention for the (in this case mostly European) uber-geeks who are in the process of recreating governments and potentially governance itself in Western Europe (and beyond).
July 6, 2011
“Open”–“Necessary” but not “Sufficient” My somewhat off the cuff comments/reflections on the recent OKCon(ference), the annual event of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) seems to have caused a bit of a stir among certain of the more senior members of the latter group. The result has been a series of comments on my original blog post and now a blogpost on a separate blog by Peter Murray-Rust an OKF Board Member, taking considerable issue with my comments.
July 11, 2011
A Data Divide? Data “Haves” and “Have Nots” and Open (Government) Data The idea of a possible parallel “data divide” between those who have access and the opportunity to make effective use of data and particularly “open data” and those who do not, began to occur to me. I was attending several planning/recruitment events for the Open Data “movement” here in Vancouver and the socio-demographics and some of the underlying political assumptions seemed to be somewhat at odds with the expressed advocacy position of “data for all”.
July 19, 2011
The Data Divide: Some Positive Developments What I find so positive about this is that the DoL is taking the issue of a potential Data Divide seriously and is devoting some of its development resources to responding by providing tools that those with more limited technical experience can use to design applications for using DoL data.
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OGP Consultation Calls |
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Greetings all;
Last week outreach was made to the following:
- All endorsers (see the letter here)
- CivicAccess.ca List
- David Eaves (Call scheduled March 5)
- Democracy Watch (Information received)
- Stephen Walker, Treasury Board of Canada (Call scheduled for March 6)
- Mike Gifford & Caterine Roy, Disability and Accessibility Experts (Call TBD)
- Canadian Association of Public Data Users
- Marc Weiler, FOI Expert
- Canadian Association of Geographers
- Michael Gurnstein, (Call scheduled this week)
- All 24 cities of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Quality of Life Reporting system (Invited to Conf. Call)
- All Community Data Program Leads
- CIPPIC (Call TBD after March 19)
- Canadian Association of Research Libraries (Invited to Conf. Call)
- IASSIST Canada (Invited to Conf. Call)
- Canadian Cartographic Association (Invited to Conf. Call)
- Association of Canadiam Map Librarians and Archivves (Invited to Conf. Call)
- All members on the Census Watch List
- DFAIT (Call to be scheduled this week)
Call Schedule this week:
- Mon. March 5, David Eaves (PM)
- Tues. March 6, Michael Gurnstein (AM), Stephen Walker (PM)
- Wed. March 7 11 AM EST & March 8 11 AM EST (Open Call)
Call Info:
Dial in # 1-877-727-8553
Participant Code 108111962
Notes will be taken during all the calls and posted here as will links to documents and websites. |
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Community Data Program application to Open Government Partnership |
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We are pleased to inform that the Community Data Program of the Canadian Council on Social Development has submitted this document to the Application Process for the April 2012 Open Government Partnership Meeting from Local Civil Society Organizations.
The cover letter, which has been endorsed by those from public, private and non-government sectors including individual experts, encapsulates a watershed moment for open data and open government in Canada. It is the first time where open data and open government advocates had to consider who was to represent them and be a spokesperson on their behalf at such as esteemed forum. There is however much to learn and much bridging still to do with open data advocates who are generally from new media/CIO-CTO/engineers communities.
It is hoped that this process will create a rapprochement between and among the major individuals and organizations. There is much to gain by doing so. This letter and the discussions it has stimulated, have been excellent first steps in that direction.
The Canadian Council on Social Development has advanced Harvey Low, its Toronto Consortium Lead for the Community Data Program (CDP) and a founding and active member of Canada Data Canada (CDC), as the civil society representative for Canada at the Open Government Partnership Annual Meetings in Brazil.
Thank you to Tracey Lauriault and datalibre.ca for sharing and communicating this effort.
Community Data Progtam OGP Cover Letter (PDF) |
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