Open Government 0 – Closed Government 1

As noted here, Adam attended Open Government 2010 on Monday of this week. Many attendess commented how in NZ the philosophy was realtively positive regarding making information available and how the internet had radically enabled openess. In the discussion groups numbers of people commented on how it was important that not just central government, but local government as well needed to engage with and support the ‘open’ proposition.

Then today Adam reads this post by Russell Brown on the far from Open approach taken by a number of NZ organisations. Quite frankly the situation he outlines is a disgrace and these organisations should be widely named and shamed.

Russell comments regarding Auckland Council for example:-

Auckland Council website is back up now, and the T&Cs don’t specifically forbid links — but they say this:

Auckland Council makes this Website available for your personal and non-commercial use. You may download and use information provided on this Website solely for your personal purposes, provided that you do not remove any proprietary rights notices, do not modify the information or make it available to third parties through a networked computer environment and do not make any additional representations or warranties regarding the information.

My emphasis. These seem to be needlessly proscriptive terms for a public organisation, and could be read as a ban on linking. Frankly, so long as the information’s integrity is preserved, the Auckland Council should have every practical interest in the currency of its content. This needs sorting out now.

Adam agrees. Indeed, given the pending arrival of the Super City maximum openess is needed not secretive and restrictive rules.

These rules and restrictions suggest that many of these organisations are totally out of touch with what is happening in the real world as regards information flow and access.

Interestingly, Russell noted one site from the Ministry of Education regarding Services for Tertiary Organisations which had this T&C statement:-

More worryingly, the Ministry of Education’s Services for Tertiary Organisations website won’t let you link to information your taxes paid for:

Linking to this website
If you want to link your web site to any of the pages on this web site, you will need the website administrators’ permission. Please email xxxxx@moe.minedu.govt.nz for permission. If you create a hypertext link to any of the pages on this website, you are responsible for any direct or indirect consequences of creating that link.

Now Open Government 2010 was opened by Stephen Joyce wearing his ministerial hat for ICT and Communications, but Joyce is Minister, is he not, for Tertiary Education.

It is disappointing to say the least that a Minister appearing to support Open Government and a regime which in a number of instances appears to support openess, should allow such narrowness and restrictiveness by organisations within their purview.

Advertisement