South Australia bans anonymous election comments online

I've been alerted by CloCkWeRX in a comment in my post, Australian Labor Party launches social media website, that the South Australian government has passed a law banning anonymous online comments about the South Australian election.

According to the article South Australian Government gags internet debate in News.com.au,

The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires anyone making an online comment about next month's state election to publish their real name and postcode.

Intended to force media outlets to police the publication of online comments in their sites in order to prevent anonymous comments or comments involving fake names, this revision to the South Australian Electoral Act potentially could be interpreted broadly across any websites hosting public comments.

This could mean the provision would apply across blogs, forums, social networks, Twitter and other online services that support public comments.

If this is the case, and the ACT is enforced across South Australian hosted sites containing public comments, this may encourage organisations to move their website hosting away from South Australia to other Australian states or overseas. It is also unclear whether or how the South Australian government would enforce the Act across other jurisdictions hosting social media websites containing public comments about the South Australian election.

It is also unclear how the law applies to online opinions posted by those aged under 18 years old, who might still have an interest or school assignment involving state politics. There could be privacy issues in having a state government government force minors to publicly publish their real full name and postcode when commenting on electoral issues during election periods.

Privacy and security issues may also apply for people in witness protection programs, who would avoid using their real name and postcode on online comments to avoid detection by criminals.

Whilst not a lawyer, it appears to me that this amendment will be very difficult to enforce - a view shared by the South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, who is responsible for overseeing state laws.

Mr Atkinson is known for his opposition to a national 'R' rating for computer games, despite the average age of Australian gamers being over 30 and 'R' rated movies being legal in Australia. He was also involved in a recent South Australian law which prohibits the display of promotional material for 'R' rated movies in areas children may enter. My understanding is that this ban is despite whether the promotional material itself portrays 'R' rated images.

Quoting the AdelaideNow article, Outrage as Rann Government, Opposition unite to gag internet election debate,

In a press conference today, Mr Atkinson said the law was "all about honesty''.

He conceded it would be difficult to police but the most "egregious and outrageous'' breaches of the new laws would be identified.

As none of the news articles actually quote the relevant section of the South Australian Electoral Act, you can find it at the Electoral Act page in the South Australian Legislation. Refer to Section 116.

 I apologise for not published the relevant section of the Act here in my blog, I am currently unclear on whether this would be considered a breach of copyright.

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Who are the 'media' anyway? The new reality of media engagement

One of the long established principles in government and big business is that only designated staff are allowed to represent their organisations when speaking to the media.

This is an extremely well-intentioned principle, designed to protect both the organisation and individual staff. The media is frequently more interested in sensation than truth and can twist innocent statements into major incidents. Even when truth and accuracy are the goal, some things may need to be kept secret (at least for awhile) for good reasons - to protect intellectual property, safeguard individual privacy, avoid giving the competition an advantage or to keep complex fast-changing situations from being presented in static and simplistic (or inaccurate) ways.

Professional journalists are, in some ways, trained interrogators (and sometimes executioners). It can take an experienced, well-trained and well-briefed organisational representative to navigate a conversation that will later be reported, dissected and analysed for flaws and inconsistencies.

This limited media engagement approach relies on a single very important factor - that the 'media' is a clearly identifiable group.

In the past it was easy to identify the media. They were the people who owned the media distribution channels - radio stations, television channels and newspapers and magazines.

Commonly journalists identified themselves based on the media outlet they were from - except when going undercover - and a good organisational media representative could relatively easily identify and, over time, build productive relationships with the leading journalists covering their topical material.

However with the introduction of the internet this changed. We now have a virtually free global distribution network topped by ubiquitious access to publishing devices - including video and photos (via mobile phones) - and usage rates in excess of 90% of western populations.

Every internet user is able to break news to every other internet user - via blogs, citizen news sites, social networks, chatrooms, forums, newsgroups, microblogs and other online media channels.

This news can then be picked up and redistributed by other internet users and may also be picked up by 'traditional media' - those radio stations, television channels, newspapers and magazines (who are thirsty for cheap content).

This makes the question 'who are the 'media' a moot point. The 'media' is now 'the public' - no longer a small group of large conglomerates controlling information distribution channels but every single person with access to a mobile phone and internet connection.

This poses a challenge for government and private sector organisations who traditionally limit media engagement by staff. All of their customers and stakeholders are able to produce, publish and distribute media news. So can their employees.

So if the rules of the past no longer apply, what can organisations do?

The first choice is to ignore the changes in the environment and try to enforce the rules that worked in the past.

This approach is enormously risky as it can lead to many gray areas and blind spots - plenty of room for inappropriate and inconsistent enforcement. Individual managers (or in the government, agencies) could interpret the scope of the 'media' differently - creating discrimination and a rising tide of dissatisfaction and legal controversy.

The second choice is to educate all of an organisation's staff on how to engage appropriately in public arenas.

This is a signficant, but not impossible, undertaking. In fact Telstra is in the process of doing this right now (regarding social media engagement), as are the US Defense forces and some government agencies and large companies around the world. This approach recognises that the media environment has changed and organisations must change with it.

The third choice is to - well I can't think of a third choice. Organisations can either recognise the realities of the world and accommodate change, or they can attempt to hold back or even reverse them.

The next few years will tell us which approach organisations have chosen - and how well they have worked out.

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Knowledge Shared equals Power Squared

I've written this post based on my comments in response to the post at the Gov 2.0 Taskforce site, If I could start with a blank piece of paper… (part 2).

In that comment I made a point that it is relatively easy for government agencies to technically adopt Gov 2.0 approaches. The technology, legal framework and much of the legwork on identifying and mitigating risks has been completed here and overseas - if you know where to look.

However culturally the adoption of Gov 2.0 poses much greater challenges. There are paradigm shifts required in public sector thinking and behaviour. This takes time to work through the system.

One part of this shift is related to the belief that Knowledge equals Power.

While this belief is both long-standing and happens to have been true for much of human history it is no longer true, and a more accurate meme would be Knowledge Shared equals Power Squared.

In the past knowledge was expensive to store and distribute. Those who held knowledge on a particular topic were held in high regard and could exert considerable power - and command substantial fees - based on their expertise.

This fostered practices where professions erected barriers to control the flow of knowledge and keep price points high - similar to how deBeers has been accused (and several times found guilty and fined) of controlling the supply, and therefore maintaining a high price for diamonds.

Indeed Wikipedia's definition of profession includes a number of characteristics based on containing and controlling knowledge, including the statement,

Inaccessible body of knowledge: In some professions, the body of knowledge is relatively inaccessible to the uninitiated. Medicine and law are typically not school subjects and have separate faculties and even separate libraries at universities.

For public sectors around the world the same influences have been at play, as have additional factors; controlling knowledge for privacy reasons, national security, to avoid public unrest and even - in some jurisdictions - to protect political figures.

However the knowledge hoarding model begins to fail when it becomes cheap and easy to share and when the knowledge required to complete a task exceeds an individual's capability to learn in the time available.

This has been reflected in a longitudinal study of knowledge workers that Robert Kelley of Carnegie-Mellon University conducted over more than twenty years. He asked professionals "What percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your own mind?"

In 1986 the answer was typically about 75%. By 1997 workers estimated that they had only about 15% to 20% of the knowledge needed in their own mind. Kelley estimated that by 2006 the answer was only 8% to 10%.

Given that professionals now need to draw 90% or more of the knowledge they need to do their jobs from others, in my view 'Knowledge equals Power' is no longer true.

I believe it is now more accurate to state Knowledge Shared equals Power Squared.

While 'squared' is not empirically true, the statement reflects that to gain and hold power individuals and organisations need to share knowledge and networking.

For the public sector this shift isn't simply about opening up access to existing knowledge resources, it requires rethinking attitudes, behaviours and policies.

For example, where hiring practices focus on hiring people with exceptional personal knowledge perhaps they need to be re-weighted. We still need people with enough knowledge to form good critical judgements, however they also need exceptional networking and information processing skills so they can locate and assess the additional knowledge needed.

Organisations that rely on long-time staff as their corporate memory need to review whether this is an effective long-term strategy. Should they future-proof themselves against inevitable retirements and resignations by taking all this knowledge, codifying and placing it in a central location for everyone to access? Should they then open up this location for editing by staff (as a wiki) so that it remains current, useful and relevant?

Thirdly, personal networks can become a source of considerable strength for both individuals and the organisations that employ them. They allow a staff member to quickly source valuable knowledge from their peers and accelerate an organisation's decision making and implementation processes. However to harness this power organisations need to allow their staff to access these networks from the office - the online communities and social networks where professionals meet and discuss.

All of these steps pale in comparison with one of the biggest areas of knowledge sharing - with the community. Organisations can derive enormous value from collaborating with their customers, constituents and stakeholders. However for this to work effectively the organisation must share their knowledge openly and allow the community to see and respond quickly to each others' comments.

I'll be posting more on this topic later this week.

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Media after empire - what's next for old media?

Mark Scott, the Managing Director of ABC, has written a very interesting piece in Unleashed about the future of 'old media' empires entitled, Media after Empire.

While it's not specifically about Government, I thought it had some very interesting comments about 'empires' which resonate with some of the challenges that the public sector faces in the digital age.

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Creating a social media policy for your department - here's over 100 examples to draw on

Social Media Governance recently released a list of 106 social media policies that can be drawn on, including nearly thirty from government (including the APSC's Circular 2008/8: Interim protocols for online media participation).


A lot of Australians now use social media - including staff in your Department, your customers and clients and many of your stakeholders.

The latest statistics, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, suggest that there are 8 million Australians using Facebook and over 1.5 million using Twitter.

A report from Neilsen also indicated that social networking in Australia has doubled in usage over the last year, with Australians having spent 1.6 million hours on these services in June 2009 (from 800,000 in June 2008). Taking June as an average, this means Australians are likely to spend almost 20 million hours using social networks in 2009.

I believe it is important that Government Departments place social media policies in place to make acceptable usage clear to staff.

It's no longer practical or reasonable for Departments to simply ban access to these services - as it's no longer practical or reasonable to ban phone calls.

Is your policy in place yet?

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NSW launches Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program as part of Apps4NSW

The NSW government has launched the Transport Data Exchange (TDX) Program to provide access to NSW transport routes, timetables and stop/station/wharf information for download and reuse in third party applications.

It's been provided as part of the data available for the Apps4NSW competition. launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere.

Unlike similar initiatives in the US and UK, which have generally employed Creative Commons licenses, the NSW Transport Authority has released the data contingent to users signing on to a specific data licensing agreement (PDF), providing the government with significantly more control over how the data may be used and who by.

As an initial step it is great to see the NSW government attempting to free up public data, although the current license agreement may restrict some usage.

For example, the license requires that there be someone eligible and willing to legally sign such an agreement. This could cause developers to think twice before signing on. It could also limit participation by young programmers and school students if their parents and schools are concerned over entering into this formal binding legal agreement with the NSW government.

The license also requires that licensees show their application to the Transport Authority at least 30 days before the application goes live. This reduces the ability for licensees to develop emergency applications at short notice to address specific events - such as fires, floods or other disasters (even dust storms).

There's also a requirement to update applications when the Department updates data, which could also present issues to those mashing up data for fun or experience. It seems to be aimed at companies who choose to mashup the data.

The comments I've seen published on Twitter include:

matthewlandauer: Not impressed with the NSW transport data license http://is.gd/3w1iL especially section 6: Release to the public. #gov2au

NickHodge: @trib @chieftech @matthewlandauer someone is scared about transparency in NSW public transport, me thinks :-(

malcolmt: Sad. Epic Fail by NSW gov with public transport timetable data license. This word Open, it does not mean what you think it means.

dasfreak: First NSW Gov open data effort starting with transport data. License on the whole OK. Reporting section bit onerous http://bit.ly/ehlj2

Overall this is a step forward for government openness, and in many respects a large step - particularly from NSW Transport's position in March, where it was actively pursuing developers with threats of legal action.

However it is only one step along a very long road.

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New York Transportation Authority sues iPhone developer over schedule information

In a sign that the discussion over what public data should be public is ongoing, the New York Times has reported that the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority has issued a takedown notice to an iPhone developer who has used train schedules in his iPhone application.

The Authority claims that public train schedule data is its intellectual property - similar to the claim by NSW Rail when it issued four takedown notices against application developers reusing NSW rail timetable data in March this year.

In this case, however, the Authority is seeking to profit off licensing the information for distribution - despite providing it for free. This was because the iPhone application maker was charging US$2.49 for his application, which he says is merely to cover the costs of producing the application.

Note that the Authority is not completely government-owned, however is paid by US governments to operate a public service, which might become an interesting area of debate in future regarding date in the public interest generated by public-private partnerships such as tollways, utilities (ActewAGL for example) and Job Network members. Even access to postcode geodata in Australia might become a consideration.

If the government contracts a third party to provide a service, should part of that arrangement include ensuring that all public data generated is made available to the public?

I think it will be a discussion we'll need to have in the next year.

It will be interesting to see how the New York situation is resolved - particularly considering the level of negative media attention the Authority has been receiving.

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New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released

Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre, I've become aware of the New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework that was release late last month.

Structured as a discussion paper, it sets out guidelines for the use of 'no copyright' and Creative Commons use across the NZ government to support the release and appropriate re-use of government generated data and materials.

One of the issues it aims to address is,

current confusion, uncertainty and criticism on the part of members of the public around Crown copyright and licensing, including difficulties being experienced through the various and inconsistent licensing practices across the State Services.

I believe this would resonate with organisations such as OpenAustralia who are attempting to reuse government data in Australia (and recently had their request rejected by Queensland).

The document provides a thorough guide to Creative Commons copyright in New Zealand.

It also includes a handy review and release decision tre to make it easy for government departments to select the licensing most appropriate for their data and documents. On first glance this tree looks jurisdictionally agnostic - meaning it could as easily be applied in Australia as it could in New Zealand.

The entire document has been released in a blog-style format, supporting comments on each page (though there are none visible to-date).

I don't expect Australia to be that far behind.

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OpenAustralia barred from republishing QLD's Hansard

It appears that the the Clerk of Queensland’s Parliament has barred OpenAustralia from republishing the state's Hansard on a series of grounds, in a blow to OpenAustralia's goal of making all of Australia's parliamentary Hansard records available online in a searchable format.

OpenAustralia has blogged about the matter, in the post, Queensland bars OpenAustralia from republishing its Hansard, republishing the email from the Clerk of the Parliament in full.

This is a good example of some of the challenges to government transparency and openness. There can be control issues arising from laws and policies which limit government openness which will need to be reconsidered at parliamentary levels.

There can also be education, responsibility, accountability, process and risk considerations around online openness. Who can approve the release of information, what are the foreseeable risks in doing so and how can they be mitigated?

Without a thorough understanding of the online medium, clear responsibilities and effective processes it can be hard in some instances to identify who has the right to approve government information being released.

OpenAustralia is speaking to other state jurisdictions about Hansard records (and has been for a number of months). It will be interesting to see whether the decision taken by the Clerk of the Parliament in QLD will become a precedent or an anomaly.

By the way, this is how Queensland's Hansard website looks.

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Do you monitor social media conversations about your department?

As a marketer I find the internet a dream channel for monitoring customer sentiment and concerns.

Social media and search engines can be easily and cheaply tracked to provide fast feedback on various initiatives. This helps organisations shape their campaigns and responses to external events.

I'd recommend that this is equally of enormous value to government, where perception and citizen sentiment can strongly influence political views and processes.

If your department isn't keeping an eye on what people are saying about you and your key topic areas (and Minister) online, then you may be missing an enormous opportunity to get early warnings on potential growing issues, to adjust campaigns and programs to take advantage of trends or to tap into popular sentiment to shape new ideas.

One example of effective use of social media monitoring is from the US Army, who closely monitor blogs and social networking sites to track the public response to various events.

The article, Air Force checked blogs, Twitter to gauge New Yorkers' anger about flyover, from NextGov, discusses how the US Army used online monitoring to track and respond to the public anger resulting from their fly-over of New York in April.

Within an hour of the flyover the Army knew it had the makings of a public relations disaster on its hands and was able to begin putting in place a response.

The Army has also used the learnings from this experience to educate further activities and use online media to ensure that citizens are receiving the facts about events.

This type of approach has many applications across government, from emergency management through to reviewing the response and level of accurate coverage of ministerial announcements.

So if you're not yet using the online channel to track citizen sentiment you may be doing your department and Minister a disservice.

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UK Ministers probed about continued Internet Explorer 6 use in their departments

I've posted previously about whether it is time for government departments still using the nine-year old Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade to a more modern web browser.

This topic has become a matter of political interest in the UK, raised in a question to British Parliamentary Ministers last week and reported in an article in Kable, MoD sticks with insecure browser.

Members of the armed forces will carry on using Microsoft's outdated Internet Explorer 6 browser, contravening the government's own advice on internet security.

According to parliamentary written answers received by Labour MP Tom Watson, the majority of departments still require staff to use IE6. Most have plans to upgrade to the more secure IE7, and some to IE8, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has no plans to change.

This should raise a flag for senior Australian public servants, who need to consider whether they risk negative political attention to their Ministers and the government due to any policy restricting their department to this old and non-standard web browser.

The use of such an old browser can also raise tensions when Departmental staff are attempting to view the web in the same manner as their customers, who are more likely to use Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3 or Safari.

This can lead to issues testing usability and accessibility, issues viewing websites no longer optimised for Internet Explorer 6 and when staff are attempting to co-browse the internet with customers whilst on the phone.

Labour MP Tom Watson was quoted in the Kable article, stating,

"Many civil servants use web browsers as a tool of their trade," he told GC News. "They're as important as pens and paper. So to force them to use the most decrepit browser in the world is a rare form of workplace cruelty that should be stopped.

"When you consider that the government supported Get Safe Online initiative advises that companies should upgrade from IE6, you would imagine that permanent secretaries would like to practice what they preach," he added. "Why civil servants should not be given the choice to use Firefox or Chrome or Safari is beyond me. UK web workers deserve better."

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Shifting from Gov 1.0 to Gov 2.0

Sometimes it is difficult for those of us who are new to the public sector to really appreciate the scope of the changes required to transition government institutions and cultures from a 1.0 to 2.0 mentality.

It's not simply a process of mandating a directional change from political levels (though this is an important and needed step) and educating public servants and elected officials to the benefits, and risks, of Government 2.0. There is also a process of change required across well-established practice and culture, processes, policy and legislation, not to mention transforming the systems and mechanics of government to suit the new global age.

All of this must be done without damaging the ongoing business of government - the provision of services, maintenance of infrastructure and management of all the behind-the-scenes activities that government is responsible for.

The Washington Monthly has published an excellent article on this topic, looking at the challenges faced in the US during this transition, which is being driven very strongly from the top.

The Geekdom of Crowds looks at how some of the mechanisms of Government 1.0 are pushing back on Government 2.0, reducing the effectiveness of government transparency and data sharing and the impact of citizens who are often far more able to open up government from the outside than are those within the political and bureaucratic machinery.

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Does Australia need Safer Social Networking Principles?

Around the world governments are struggling to understand and address some of the age-old issues that have been accelerated by the intranet.

One attracting particularly high attention is the protection of young people from illegal and inappropriate material, cyberstalking, cyberbullying and, sometimes, themselves.

Various governments are attempting different approaches to address these issues, with the European Union using a balance of approaches including new law enforcement initiatives, legislative change, parent and carer education, young people education and industry self-regulation in consultation with government.

I have been reviewing the Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU (PDF), released in February this year, which clearly defines the unacceptable range of practices,

As with many products and services, the misuse of these technologies can present an element of potential risk to children and young people. SNS [CT: Social Network Service] providers must assess if and how these potential risks apply to their own services. Potential online risks to children and young people fall into four categories:

• ‘Illegal content’, such as images of child abuse and unlawful hate speech

• ‘Age-inappropriate content’, such as pornography or sexual content, violence, or other content with adult themes which may be inappropriate for young people.

• ‘Contact’, which relates to inappropriate contact from adults with a sexual interest in children or by young people who solicit other young people.

• ‘Conduct’, which relates to how young people behave online. This includes bullying or victimisation (behaviours such as spreading rumours, excluding peers from one’s social group, and withdrawing friendship or acceptance) and potentially risky behaviours (which may include for example, divulging personal information, posting sexually provocative photographs, lying about real age or arranging to meet face-to-face with people only ever previously met online).

With the interactivity that web 2.0 technologies enable, it is also important to remember that in addition to being victims young people can also initiate or participate in anti-social or criminal activities.

The principles make acceptable and unacceptable conduct very clear and have become a benchmark for parents, educators and governments to judge companies against.

A number of Social Network Service providers have signed these principles and taken steps to make their services compliant and supportive of the principles.

I wonder whether Australia should look at a similar approach.

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Getting the government out of government 2.0

A key factor in government 2.0 is that it doesn't have to be a government body that delivers the government 2.0 experience.

Sometimes government should simply be the platform providing the data and allow external organisations to provide the combined services and information that the public wants.

This can lead to faster, cheaper and more innovative service and information delivery. External parties are not bound by the same restrictions and overheads as the public sector, can draw on more diverse pools of ideas and compete to provide the best solutions.

Of course there needs to be oversight to ensure that accuracy and equity remain top of mind. Everyone eligible for a service should be able to access it, and information needs to be available in an accurate and timely fashion.

These concerns can often be managed through appropriate copyrighting (such as Creative Commons) or by having government provide a base-level service.

One of the best examples of government 2.0 in Australia fits these criteria.

OpenAustralia republishes Hansard records and the Members' Register of Interest for Federal government, making them easier to access, search and comment on.

Should government provide a similar tool?

I'd argue no. Provided government can make the information available in a basic way, and ensure the information is readily accessible to be republished by others, the government can focus its investments into other areas of improvement.

In my view this doesn't only hold for Hansard records. There are many areas across government where we would be better served by making data available in a simple reusable format and allow the not-for-profit and private sectors to provide services on top.

Below is a speech by one of the founders, Matthew Landauer, given to the employees of Google about the purpose and journey of OpenAustralia, with a glimpse into the future of the site.

A post about the speech - and the OpenHacking event OpenAustralia recently held is on the Google Code blog, Australia goes open.

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APS Values and Code of Conduct in practice guide updated to including blogging and social media

I'm not quite sure when these edits happened, but reading through the APS Values and Code of Conduct in practice last night I noticed that they have been updated to comprehensively include blogs and social media (particularly Section 15: APS employees as citizens).

If you've not read this recently, it is worth reviewing to see how online channels are now integrated within the code of practice for Australian federal public servants.

This extends the effect of Circular 2008/8: Interim protocols for online media participation.

Social media participation by public servants in Australia is slowly becoming an accepted part of the landscape.

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Creating appropriate guidelines for Twitter engagement

Mosman council has published information and guidelines for how their organisation will engage citizens via Twitter.

It's very clear and well-constructed, providing a model for how other government agencies can represent a Twitter channel publicly, building on my post on Getting started with Twitter in Australian government.

By the way, if you were wondering how many Australians used Twitter, there are indications that the figure is over 1 million based on extrapolation from this analysis by Lucas Ng, How Many Australian Twitter Users Are There? And What Clients Do They Use?.

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The implications of the Ice TV High Court decision for government data

I've had a long time interest in Ice TV. In fact about five years ago I was considering investing in the company, or encouraging my then employer (ActewAGL/TransACT) to invest in it as an extension to their cableTV service.

For anyone unaware of the company, they sell electronic program guides (EPGs) for free-to-air channels for use in Digital Video Recorders (DVRs).

The EPGs are used by DVR systems to allow people to 'set and forget' record their favourite shows for later viewing - such that the DVR records the shows every week, regardless of whether the TV channels move the timeslots around.

Ice TV didn't simply rip off TV guides from the newspaper however, they had people watch the TV channels and record program names and times - then filled the gaps with information from existing program guides.

Ice TV has been involved in a several year legal battle with Channel 9, who claimed they held copyright over their program guide and even the small bits that Ice TV was using to fill gaps was a breach of their copyright over the literary work that was their program guide.

After years of litigation, the High Court has ruled that Channel 9 did not own copyright over program guides - because the information could realistically only be presented in one way... The time, then the program name.

Whilst not a legal expert, I foresee that this may have major implications for many pieces of information government in Australia creates. For instance copyright protection may be void for rail, bus and ferry timetables, tables of basic data (such as this electorate list on the CSA website) and most, if not all, of the data released by the ABS online (which is largely under Creative Commons licenses anyway).

Taking the High Court ruling, as this government data can realistically only be portrayed in one way (Name, Data), it is no longer protected under Australian copyright laws.

This counterdicts the actions by NSW RailCorp to prevent republishing of rail timetables in mobile applications (which the NSW government has already forced them to back down on), and probably some similar activities elsewhere in Australia.

This also impacts the business sector - data in annual reports, tidal charts, exchange rates, and much more are now, under the High Court ruling, probably not covered under our copyright laws.

I'm interesting to see how this will be used by free data advocates - and what the legal responses will be.

The transcript of the Radio National discussion this High Court judgement is at The Law Report - Ice TV.

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US government opens social media flood gates - legal deal signed to use sites

The US government might have become one of the most active public administrations using blogging, Twitter, Facebook and other online 'social' mediums, but until now there have been legal issues over how and whether Federal agencies could legally use these tools.

However, after nine months of negotiations and discussion, the GSA has now signed an agreement with four video-sharing and social networking sites permitting their use by Federal authorities. Agreements with another two sites are in progress, and I am sure more will come.

Seventeen Federal Agencies have already signed, or are in the process of signing up via GSA's template, opening the floodgates to a significant leap in US government use of online channels.

Reported in Nextgov, GSA signs deals for agencies to use social networking sites, these agreements are a watershed for US public sector internet use.

The four sites with agreements, structured as Memorandums of Understanding, are Flickr, Vimeo, blip.tv and YouTube. GSA is negotiating with Facebook and MySpace.

Federal agencies are also beginning to create new roles to meet the President's new transparency directive and integrate use of online communications and engagement channels within their mix,

Most agencies will appoint directors of new media to determine how they can use social networking tools to meet mission goals and comply with President Obama's open government directive, said Sheila Campbell, team leader of Web best practices for the government portal USA.gov and co-chair of the Federal Web Managers Council.

The directive will instruct agencies to make their operations more transparent and to create a process that asks the public to submit opinions on policy issues and enable collaboration with organizations in the public and private sectors.

"Agencies that already have a business case to use these tools will have the legal footing to do so," Campbell said. Tools should be used strategically, she added, "not just for the sake of using them, but to accomplish agency missions."

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