Search
Content type: News & Analysis
15th November 2012
Large institutions tend to focus internally, with minimal regard to the external environment. Open Databecoming institutionalised is not different, and as a leading edge country in opening data, the UK is making the predictable mistakes first:
The UK’s Department for Education (DfE) is currently considering opening data from the National Pupil Database. At a preparation event for this initiative, at which some data was released for use in an ‘appathon’, one participant believed he had…
Content type: News & Analysis
16th August 2012
Imagine a secret government list of suspicions and allegations, fuelled by unsubstantiated rumours provided by anonymous citizens with undisclosed intentions. The information contained in the list would not be measured against any legal burden of proof or supported by any credible evidence, but would – simply by its existence – become “fact”. Imagine, then, if the government could rely upon such “facts” to identify and implicate individuals for illegal behaviour. Such a system would be…
Content type: News & Analysis
13th July 2012
Privacy is internationally recognized as a fundamental right. Yet the confines of the right to privacy are subject to never-ending games of tug-of-war between individuals, governments and corporations. These games are rarely fair – individuals are often under-informed and lack the capacity to assert and protect their privacy, while those who seek to erode it are increasingly overbearing and secretive. This is particularly the case in developing countries, where the absence of adequate legal and…