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THE RILEY REPORT - April 2008
from Thomas B. Riley RTRiley6@cs.com
www.rileyis.com
Following is the Riley Report for March 2008. Please feel free to pass this on as you see fit. If you wish to use any part of the Report in an offline publication please acknowledge the author or contact the author for permission if it is to be fully republished offline. If you are not currently subscribed to the Riley Report (there is no charge) you may email RTRiley6@cs.com and simply put "subscribe" in the body of the text.
This month's report assesses the issue of openness in our society through the use of freedom of information laws vs. privacy laws which give citizens the right to access their personal information held in government databanks. Each of these principles can be considered part of our inalienable human rights in democratic and free societies.
Openness
vs. Privacy:
What are the Tensions?
By Thomas B. Riley
Modern information and communication technologies are
pervasive and have opened the world to new levels of communication and
interaction between people. In the process our way of thinking and living
has changed due to the impact of the new technologies. There are billions
of bytes of data available in many forms and formats on the Internet. Much
of the data is aggregate or anonymous but there is also a plethora of personal
data now available online. We all exchange personal information in one
form or another. Most of us try hard to ensure our personal details do not
get into the wrong hands. Yet, the fact is that with so much information
now roaming through cyberspace and across the networks of the world, the
possibilities of breaches are stronger than ever.
Privacy and Data Protections laws are in place in many jurisdictions around the
world. The essential remit of these organizations are to educate
individuals on the importance of privacy, apply the basic privacy principles,
ensure access to personal information from individuals, deal with complaints if
individuals are denied access to personal documents and to inform the public on
how to protect their personal information.
The question when dealing with a specific issue of openness (freedom of
information laws) versus privacy laws is: which is the most important value in
that instance? In an ideal world both would be considered equally
important. However, such is not the case. There are tensions between
public officials who have developed a policy declaring that government
information be open to the public, as part of the philosophy that says citizens
have "the right to know." Privacy comes from the opposite angle,
allowing access to individuals seeking their own personal information lodged in
a government department, agency or database. Privacy advocates in many
jurisdictions, in countries around the world that have these laws, will argue
that the protection of the personal information of individuals is paramount.
Part of the answer to this conundrum is to redact personal information of
individuals when requests are made under freedom of information laws.
However, despite the ideals incorporated in these two laws there are a legion of
issues. FOI and privacy laws have existed now for over four decades in the
USA and around the world. At this stage of existence of these laws, it has
become apparent that privacy laws are of major importance to citizens.
As citizens we accept certain limits of the use of our personal information.
We freely give out our names, addresses and phone numbers when needed for
transactions such as obtaining credit cards, signing up for services, purchasing
items, and a host of other reasons. These transactions are kept within the
confines of a government or private sector organization and the individual's
details are not necessarily readily accessible to others. But there are
even exceptions to this, where organizations in both the public and private
sectors have been careless with people's personal details which can end up in
the public domain where they should not be.
However, in countries where there are strong privacy laws, there are Privacy
Commissioners Offices that oversee these issues. When there are serious
privacy breaches these Offices conduct investigations as to how such large (or
even small) amounts of personal information of individuals emerged into the
public domain. Such investigations, when concluded, lay out the problems
and the issues arising as to how such information needs to be protected and
measures put in place to prevent leakages in future. These investigations
always make recommendations on how to remedy any breaches. Recommendations
are made by the privacy officials and released to the public. The
offenders are required to uphold them. Another positive side effect of
these actions is the idea that this assures the citizen at large that
governments are concerned about breaches of their individual privacy.
Many governments around the world do put up the names of many of their officials
on their web sites. For example, on the Canada site (http://canada.gc.ca)
there is a directory of government officials on the main page. One can
click on and scroll down the list of employee names. However, all that is
revealed is the individual's name, title and office number and in some case the
email address. This is transparency at its best as it allows an outsider
to contact officials or employees but does not cross their public life to their
personal life. This is an important distinction. Public employees
are identified only in their public capacity but not their private lives.
Even a public employee's salary is not given in the exact amount but only as a
range for the particular position held.
Thus, it is evident that freedom of information laws are critical in a society,
as such laws allow access to the practices of governments and give access to
wide amounts of information that can be valuable to individuals and groups
alike. Privacy laws allow the individual to know what personal information
the government has on them and gives not only the right of access but the
ability to expunge data in their individual file. Both freedom of
information and privacy laws encompass important values. Information laws
act as a catalyst to share information and knowledge.
April 7, 2008
Thomas Riley is available for consultations, preparation of reports, presenting workshops or delivering speeches at conferences and seminars on e-government, e-governance and e-democracy. Please contact me at the email address below for further details.
Thomas B. Riley
Executive Director and Chair
Commonwealth Centre for E-Governance
www.electronicgov.net
President, Riley Information Services Inc.
www.rileyis.com
email:
rtriley6@cs.com
Author: Time's End
www.amazon.com
(see under books: Thomas B. Riley)
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