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September 2000

THE SHAPE OF INFORMATION TO COME

As the Internet takes hold in our daily lives, and begins to take a new and ubiquitous shape and form, the need for governments to develop information policies to suit the changing nature of these technologies is becoming more evident. In much of the developed world, the Internet is a communications force that is growing. According to NUA plc, a company in Ireland, that tracks the growth of the Internet and the implication of our growing information technology infrastructure, as of the end of the year 2000, 60% of the population in the United States and Canada will have some form of online access to the Internet (http://www.nu.ie). This can be in the office, the home, an educational institute or some public space, such as libraries, community halls, Internet cafes and other public venues.

In the United Kingdom, over 50% of the population now enjoy some kind of Internet access. There, much of the growth of the Internet has been stimulated because many companies offer Internet access free. The citizen pays only for local calls. In Europe, the whole question of measured rates is a serious issue, as many contend, this does impede not only access to the Internet, but, even if there is access, then the individual has to be careful about how long one is online. This is because the cost factor can act as an inhibitor to accessing the Internet and the amount of time spent online. However, despite these problems, there are now over 200 million people online around the world.

We are now awash with information in our new cyber environments. There are currently billions of pages out on the world wide web. There is so much information that no single search engine can go out and suck up all the information an individual might be seeking. In fact, there is such a proliferation of information that many search engine companies now do not give total access to everything that is on the web. What some of the search engine companies are now doing is giving priority to companies who pay to have their company or organization show first on a search, when a given topic or key word is entered into their search engine. This is now giving an edge to those who can afford to pay the necessary fee to be at the top of the list.

The world wide web is now so big that some web sites are not even getting joined to the network of networks because there might be a connection problem in their local area. Also, government and private organizations are now building web sites that can only be accessed through their own Intranets, or by having a specific address for a web site with a password to enter. The world is at the fingertips of the citizen, but the new challenge is actually finding what is out there. The freewheeling, widely democratic, open, ubiquitous, and accessible Internet is still there, but the shadows of secrecy are beginning to move in. The danger exists that corporate dominance, with the economic rules of the market force at play, could inherently impede the free nature of the Internet over time.

When entering cyberspace, the challenges for the citizen who wants an open and accountable society, both from government and the private sector world, are now many. The success of our new information technology environments is going to depend on how much say and control citizens will have on information in the decade to come.

Information is shaping our world. We now live in the Digital Age, in which information, in a global knowledge economy, has become the supreme commodity. Information is not only a piece of barter for the business world to use for competitive and commercial value. Information is now a precious commodity for the citizen.

In our new Internet environments, citizens are increasingly demanding more privacy rights to protect their personal information. However, there is also a contradiction here, as at the moment, citizens are sharing and using personal and aggregate information more than ever before. But in a cyberspace environment, the citizen is becoming increasingly sophisticated in understanding the impact that information can have on one’s life. The individual wants to ensure that one’s own personal information is not abused. The individual wants the ability to control his/her personal information environment in cyberspace. At the same time, the individual wants unfettered access to all manner of information. But the sheer amount of information available, the ability to communicate information, and the value that individuals put on information, is bringing a new understanding of the nature of information itself. This understanding is also what is driving the new forces for change in the growing democracy online movement around the world.

Thus, on the side of freedom of information, the public is starting to demand more information for all facets of their lives. We see more data on labels of commercial products; shareholders demand more information about the activities of the companies in which they are investing (not just the usual "hyped" good news about the company's activities in the past year). Citizens are demanding and seeking more information about many activities in society. The Information Age appears to be bringing more demands for accountability. In the years to come, the public will come to expect more and more accountability, in the form of enlightening information, from private sector organizations. The Internet is an open network, which has created open environments. With this openness has come a demand for certain rights, to ensure the inherent democratic nature of the Internet is maintained. This idea is now spreading into society as a whole, resulting in demands for more and more accountability from all our public and private sector organizations.

Thus, it appears that the next wave of information rights will spread out to the private sector. As the average citizen becomes armed with more knowledge (or at least has the capacity to be armed with knowledge), then it will be private sector organizations, along with governments, who are going to have to become more forthcoming about the information held in their organizations. The private sector here means not just large corporations or businesses, but rather all organizations, including non-profits. Just as privacy moved into the domain of the private sector thirty years ago, when Sweden passed the first data protection law in the world, so will freedom of information become a part of the private sector domain. The shape and form it takes will be different, but the providing of more information to society will occur.

We currently live in an age of individuals’ rights, because in our current climate of the citizen as consumer, the individual is paramount. This will change, as the recognition dawns that it is also aggregate rights that strengthen the citizenry as a whole. As this idea flourishes, then privacy will now hold the same sway, and demands for information on a more sophisticated level will grow. Privacy will become a part of civil society’s infrastructure. As the knowledge economy grows, and the knowledge professional comes to be seen as a powerful force in our society, so will the demands for wider swathes of information grow. It might seem at the moment that we already live in a world with too much information. This change of demand for information will be for “organized” information that informs, not overwhelms, the citizen.

Information is now an issue in a new form. Governments are also going to be subject to pressures from emerging information forces in society. For example, the secrecy of governments, at the moment, is defined to the degree that information is shared with the public. The lack of efficacy of a freedom of information law is shown by the narrowness with which government exempts information from the public. Canada’s information law is currently under review, because of the criticisms that the statute too much favours the public sector, and too much information is withheld on specious grounds. Another reason for a review of the Canadian Access to Information Act is that it was developed in the late seventies, and passed by Parliament in 1982, before the emergence of new information technologies. But the challenge of governments now is not just to pass or amend freedom of information laws.

In our new environments, we have to look at information as the force it has become in society. Changing environments bring different attitudes.

For example, as governments go online with electronic service delivery, more content is going to become available to the public. But it is not going to be enough to put information up on a web site. Any information is going to have to be organized.

In many cases, there is too much information on a web site, which makes the site virtually unusable by the citizen. Thus, information management is rising as a discipline within government. This is vital, so that policies can be evolved which ensure citizens are getting the information they need and want (not what someone ‘thinks’ the public want), while at the same time protecting individual privacy. Once governments put content online, a policy issue will immediately emerge. The private sector learned this in the early days of the web. The growth of online marketing and ecommerce brought with it major privacy and copyright issues. For the citizen, who is going online for government information, if a request is rejected, the issue will become: why can’t I have access?

In an information-intensive society, citizens want more from both governments and the private sector alike. The above is simply an overview of the emerging issues and problems. Solutions need to be sought, as these new technologies become even more persuasive forces in our society.

Thomas B. Riley
Visiting Professor,
University of Glasgow
President, Riley Information Services,
Ottawa, Canada
info@rileyis.com
Ph: 613-236-7844
Fax: 613-236-7528

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