United States: State Department Inspector General Steve Linick issues a report highly critical of the department’s handling of FOI requests. He says the department did not follow rules requiring searching email accounts when relevant records are likely maintained in these accounts.
World Press Freedom Day: A registration page is now available or the May 2-4 WPFD event in Finland. See general conference page, too.
Canada: Following a scathing report by the Privacy and Information Commissioner t on how records are being handled by the British Columbian provincial government, there’s a new report detailing how to implement her recommendation written by David Loukidelis, former Information and Privacy Commissioner for the Province of Alberta.
Germany: Arne Semsrott of Open Knowledge Foundation Germany gives a speech in which he describes FOI in Germany and recaps 2015 developments, giving examples of interesting FOI requests. See video in German (Find English translation under Downloads.) Among other things, he says a new platform, VerklagDenStaat.de (SueTheState), was launched, supplementing the existing platform FragDenStaat.de (AskTheState). The title of the conference, mostly attended by hackers, was “Crypto ist Abwher – IFG ist Angreff,” which doesn’t translate easily. The idea is that you need to defend (Abwher) yourself from the state (e.g. by hacking) but also need to attack (Angreff ) by demanding more transparency through FOI (IFG).
United States: The annual number of FOIA cases filed in federal court reached an all-time high of 498 in fiscal year 2015, according a 15-year analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), according to an analysis by David Burnham.
United Kingdom: The Information Commissioner’s Office publishes new guidance on sections 22 and 22A of the Freedom of Information Act. Section 22 provides an exemption for information held by a public authority which intends for it eventually to be published, where it is reasonable not to disclose it until publication. Section 22A provides a wider exemption for research information held by a public authority.
United States: Nominations have been invited for 2016 class of the National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame. Nominations will be accepted through Jan. 23, 2016, and should be made by e-mail. Nominations should include a statement of qualifications and links to supporting information, data or reports; and must include the name, e-mail and telephone contact information the nomination. Please send nominations to Gene Policinski, Chief Operating Officer, Newseum Institute, at gpolicinski@newseum.org. (202-292-6290 for inquiries) The nominations will be reviewed by a selection committee drawn the FOI community and from members of the Hall. The Hall of Fame was created in 1996 and is maintained online by the Newseum Institute. A new group has been installed every five years. See list of past winners.
Philippines: “It’s no secret that trying to access official government records is no easy task in the Philippines. But towards the end of President Benigno Aquino III’s term, obtaining copies of public documents has been painstakingly harder than ever,” according to an article in Rapper by Patty Pasion.
Spain: Problems using the new FOI law are addressed in an El Pais article by Ellen Sevillano.
United Kingdom: Ministers want to extend FOI powers to the charity sector to allow members of the public to keep track of the way government grants are being spent,” according to reporting by Christopher Hope in The Telegraph. Local governments are pushing for FOI exemptions, says an article in Conservative Home by Harry Phibbs. Blogger Matt Burgess reviews the work of the FOI Commission.
United Kingdom: Kate Allen of the Financial Times writes that the House of Commons’ Speaker blocked the publication of information about members of Parliament drinking in subsidized bars.
India: The e-mail IDs of government officials cannot be provided under the RTI Act because it could cause a serious security threat, the Central Information Commission has ruled. The Commission, however, directed the National Informatics Centre to quickly complete a web directory of e-mail IDs of officials dealing public issues in larger public interest, according to an article in The Economic Times.
United States: The deadline is Jan 14 to fill out a short very quick survey on FOI fees from the National Security Archive and the Project on Government Oversight.
OGP: Joe Foti, coordinator of the Independent Review Mechanism, examines why some commitments don’t get implemented. By June 30, 51 countries are due to submit new action plans, according to another blog post. Jan.31 is the deadline for nominations for civil society members of the OGP Steering Committee.
Twitter Archives: Social networking website Twitter and Politwoops have struck deal that would allow people to access the controversial tweets that politicians posted and later deleted after public outcry, the Sunlight Foundation reports.
United States: A special issue of Newsweek called “Declassified” (purchase here) describes documents declassified in 2105. See description by Lauren Harper in the blog Unredacted. Harper publishes the material she contributed to Newsweek.
India: Advertisements to create awareness on the RTI Act have been at an all-time low this year, 20 percent less than in the last fiscal year, requester Vihar Durve discovered.
India: The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) can impose fine on Public Information Officials but The Ahmedabad Mirror found that a majority of penalized PIOs have not paid their fines. Similarly, most fines owed by PIOs to the Haryana State Information Commission have not been paid, The Tribune reported, based on information received by Subhash, state coordinator of the Haryana Soochna Adhikar Manch.
India: The rural development minister in the state of Karanataka, H K Patil, says his official notes and letters will be made available on the department’s website, minus certain classified information, The Deccan Herald reports.
European Union: New EU rules preventing the public disclosure of dangerous goods incidents on aircraft have been criticized by FOI campaigners. writes Helen McArdle in The Herald. Maurice Frankel, director of the UK Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: “This restrictive regulation was implemented earlier this year and directly stops FoI requests for previously available information.”
Rwanda: A commentary article in The New Times on open data, privacy and related topics by Fred K. Nkusi, described as “an international law expert and lecturer.”
India: The Supreme Court-appointed Lodha panel makes recommendation concerning in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), including the perennial suggestion that it be covered by the RTI Act, according to The Hindustan Times.
United States: The state office responsible for helping Tennesseans gain access to public records and entrance to government meetings isn’t keeping up with its workload, according to audit described by The Tennessean.
United States: Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner is keeping too much information off his official events calendar, the Illinois attorney general’s office says, according to a State Journal-Register report.
United States: A variety of 2015 retrospectives: by Wisconsin openness advocate Bill Leuders, by the request site Muckrock, by Vice reporter Jason Leopold and by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Also an overview of 2015 FOI developments in the conservative Washington Examiner newspaper by Sarah Westwood.
India: Former commissioner Shailesh Gandhi announces on Facebook a new effort to encourage and guide citizens to use the RTIA. He will be at Money life Foundation’s knowledge centre at Shivaji Park every Wednesday from 4.30 pm to 7 pm from 13 January 2016, “to help citizens understand and use these powerful tools of citizen empowerment.”
India: Mahiti Adhikar Manch launches a Post Graduate Certificate Course in RTI by the Department of Civic and Politics, University of Mumbai, DNA reports.
United States: A website that tracks public records requests to West Virginia state and local governments has been established. The site will list agencies, what was requested, when it was requested and who asked for the information. It will say how much agencies charged and whether they partly or entirely granted requests, or denied them, and the reasons for denials. It will also include the date that the request was formally completed. The site won’t include the actual agency records produced in response, according to an Associated Press article.
United States: “A major impediment to justice and accountability for police violence is the lack of comprehensive data on law enforcement-involved shootings and use-of-force incidents,” writes Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org.
Open Data: Examples of the use of open data from around the world, complied in a Sunlight Foundation blog post by Júlia Keser?.
Open Data: How journalist Frank Matt handled a US Department of Labor database on former nuclear employees suffering from illnesses related to their work is described by Chava Gourarie in a Columbia Journalism Review article.
Open Data: A commentary by Keith D. Shepherd, who leads the Science Domain on Land Health Decisions at the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF), Nairobi, Kenya, says: “It is not enough simply to assume that the data revolution will benefit sustainable development. Ensuring that it does will require recognizing the importance of rigorous analysis in every data-collection effort and the formation of a new generation of decision scientists to work alongside policymakers.”
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