Hungary/OGP: An OGP committee agrees with civil society complaints about Hungary, the OGP announces. The Criteria and Standards subcommittee conducted a review of the evidence presented in the letter. The subcommittee adopted a report which found the concerns expressed in the letter to be relevant to the government of Hungary’s participation in OGP and to the text of the Open Government Declaration. The subcommittee drafted a document that outlines the actions to be taken by the government of Hungary to restore a positive operating environment for civil society.
Canada: The government includes Access to Information Act reform it its new OGP national action plan. The draft NAP is available in English and French and open for public feedback: The final plan will be posted on the Government of Canada open government portal, open.canada.ca. David Eaves provides a comprehensive review, favorable with caveats. The Globe and Mail writes about ATIA recommendations from a parliamentary committee. Also see commentary in The Huffington Post by Vince Gogolek, Executive Director, BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association. Separately, the information commissioner addresses new funding.
Job Opportunity: Two job postings by the Transparency and Accountability Initiative. T/AI is seeking to hire a Senior Program Officer and a Program Associate for its Washington office.
Nigeria: The government finally sends official letter of commitment to joint the OGP.
Nigeria: “Nigeria: FoI Act – Much Expectations, Less Impact,” an article in The Vanguard by Abdulwahab Abdula. “The challenges and inadequacies facing the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, FoI, five years after it was passed into law by the National Assembly, no doubt exposed the weakness of the law as well as the failure of majority of Nigerians to tap into its provisions to make public records and information easily accessible.”
United States: The Internal Revenue Service releases information on nonprofits by making electronically filed Form 990s available in bulk and in a machine-friendly format.
United States: “A beginner’s guide to FOIA-ing the NSA,” by Michael Morisey. “What you can get, what you can’t, and where to start.”
India: The Kerala State Chief Information Commissioner Vinson M. Paul orders the disclosure of information on Cabinet decisions taken between January 1 and March 12, 2016, just before the Assembly elections, The Hindu reports.
Latin America: “Latin American journalists and editors gathered in Buenos Aires, Argentina earlier this month to share experiences and successful methods for producing a kind of investigative journalism that has been growing in the region: fact-checking,” reports the Knight Foundation Journalism in the Americas blog.
Canada: “The FOI Raccoon Digs Through Council’s Emails, DMs, and BBMs,” an article by Jessica Smith Craig in the Torontoist, with the subtitle, “Personal emails about public business are supposed to be publicly accessible information, but the reality is complicated.”
Denmark: A report (in Danish) in Journalisten on a seminar about the access law.
New Zealand: In a new book, journalist and editor, Gavin Ellis chronicles the erosion of the Bill of Rights Act.
United States: Alex Howard of The Sunlight Foundation writes critically about publication of voter registration data.
United States: The FBI says the locations of cameras on telephone poles are undisclosable.
United States: Only partial transcripts released of shooter’s calls with police, US News reports.
Australia: A former bikini model files a law suit after discovering via a right to information request that police officers had accessed her personal file more than 1400 times after she was found guilty of a traffic offenses, The Daily Mail reports.
Open Water: A bill in California seeks to force disclosure of data on water use by corporations and farms.
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