Open Government Data
Open Government Partnership Transparency Policy Needs Significant Improvement
25 November 2011, Madrid/Halifax – The Open Government Partnership , a global transparency initiative jointly sponsored by US President Obama and Brazilian President Rousseff, must significantly improve its internal access to information policy to meet the standards it is advancing according to an analysis launched today by two specialist organisations, Access Info Europe and the Centre for Law and Democracy.
Two months after its launch in September 2011 when 46 countries pledged to work towards greater openness, the OGP is struggling with its own transparency rules according to the expert analysis submitted as part of a one-month public consultation that ends today.
"The Open Government Partnership risks missing the opportunity to set high standards which can serve as a model for all the participating countries," commented Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info Europe. "The policy should be reformed to incorporate basic open data principles such as that information will be made available in a machine-readable, electronic format free of restrictions on reuse."
Open Government Partnership should mark end to “transparency hypocrisy”
20 September 2011: With 46 countries gathering in New York today to launch the Open Government Partnership, Access Info Europe warned that the promises being made must be carefully monitored to prevent participating governments from using the process to give a false impression of their transparency credentials.
“This initiative has the potential to promote higher standards of openness, in particular in the area of proactive publication of information, but care must be taken to ensure that it does not become a window-dressing exercise,” said Helen Darbishire, Executive Director of Access Info Europe.
The danger of “transparency hypocrisy” is very real: at the same time as participating as a leading member of the OGP, the UK government is engaged in litigation against Access Info Europe to block access to documents about reform of the EU’s own access to documents rules.
OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA
What is Open Government Data? Open government data is about getting access to information held by government bodies formats that anyone can use for any purpose. Read more...
Read the Beyond Access Report to know more about the relation between the right of access to information and the Open Government Data.
Access Info Europe in the jury of the Open Data Challenge
Access info Europe will be part of the jury that decides the winners of this year’s Open Data Challenge. The OD Challenge is a competition on how to reuse European public data for building new useful applications.
This competition is organized by the Open Knowledge Foundation and is taking place until the 5th of June and the winners will be announced at the European Digital Assembly in Brussels that will take place on the 16th and 17 of June.
For further information on this completion please check the official website
Looking for data and ideas for Visualizar'11
Access Info Europe is helping the information designers secure access to data that will be used as part of the “Visualizar’11” a two-week programme on data vizualization.
Organised at Medialab Prado Madrid , Visualizar is a participative research and knowledge –exchange process on the theories and strategies for visualizing information.
The Vizualizar project depends on information designers having access to data bases. Access Info Europe will give participants guidance on accessing data bases from public bodies and will monitor levels of access.
This year Visualizar is devoted to Understanding Infrastructures. The call for ideas is open until 21Mach 2011. Visualizar’11 will take place in Madrid from 14 June to 1July 2011.
Watch the video of the presentation (in Spanish) here
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