Government Transparency Is About More Than Open Data

Government openness might seem an unlikely topic of discussion at a time when revelations of secret mass-surveillance programmes are still making the news, but that’s exactly what’s been on the agenda at the Open Government Partnership Summit 2013.

The Open Government Partnership, which aims to encourage open government reforms, launched in 2011 and now counts 61 countries as members. The UK hosted this year’s summit in London from October 30 to November 1, and Prime Minister David Cameron asserted that open government was “absolutely fundamental to a nation’s success in the 21st century.”

On Thursday, World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee unveiled a report that put the UK at the top of the Open Data Barometer, and Cameron laid out Britain’s latest commitments to openness. These include plans to establish a “central register of company beneficial ownership” (to show who really benefits financially from businesses and help prevent tax evasion), and to set out a National Information Infrastructure. The NII promises to contain “the data held by government which is likely to have the broadest and most significant economic and social impact if made available and accessible outside of government, where possible.”

But just releasing data to the public doesn’t automatically lead to transparency. Leaving aside what might be excluded by that “where possible” clause, these new commitments to openness seem a little at odds with previous announcements—most notably, the UK government’s proposals to restrict the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, announced last year.

Ahead of the summit this week, 76 organisations signed a letter to Cameron urging him to drop proposals that would make it easier for authorities to refuse FoI requests on the basis of cost. At the moment, authorities can refuse requests if the cost of finding and retrieving the information exceeds a certain amount (which is calculated according to how long it takes someone to do it—time is money, after all). Under the proposals, they could also take into account the cost of actually considering whether to release the information or not.

The government claims this will only prevent those who “impose disproportionate burdens on public authorities by making what may be considered as ‘industrial’ use of the Act," but the letter’s backers, who include campaigners, journalists, and charities, say it “would restrict access by all users, including those making occasional requests of modest scope.”

It’s all very well having access to extensive datasets, but if they don’t include the one bit of information you want, they’re not much use. Simply releasing more data does not an open government make.