Do governments have effective frameworks for allowing online protests?

I remember the great demonstration of November 1997. A plea went out asking citizens to gather outside their leader's home to protest about major problems with the system. They were requested to be peaceful and law-abiding, to simply chant slogans, drink beer and remove their clothes.

This demonstration was to be in Ultima Online, a massive multiplayer online game which, when launched, had a number of bugs and issues which frustrated gamers. One gamer decided that a protest in the game would be an effective way to bring the issues to the game developer's attention.

The protest was cancelled (the developers got the message), however it was my first exposure to an online protest movement - a gathering of people in a virtual space to protest a real concern (albeit in this case a game-specific issue).

Since that time, almost fourteen years ago, there's been many other online demonstrations on a range of topics. Some of the most notable include the candlelit vigils held in Everquest and Anarchy Online following the 9/11 attacks, and the 'Dead in Iraq' protest in 2006, recognising US deaths in the war (see video below).



As the world has digitalised and more people spend more time online it is logical that the internet becomes a significant channel for demonstrations and protests, as the internet has become for entertainment, social interaction, shopping and self-actualisation. As far back as 2007 the Washington Post was reporting Where Have All the Protests Gone? Online

Today Facebook and Twitter are central channels for organising and carrying out protests. Users are regularly asked by their friends to change their profile pictures, add a 'Twibbon', join a cause or take other steps to build awareness of or indicate their support for a given cause or issue.

Online petitions are also widespread and, in some cases supported and facilitated by governments, such as the UK ePetition website.

Many of these online protest approaches are peaceful and unobtrusive, although some are a little more direct - such as the GreenPeace organised protest against Nestle via Nestle's Facebook page.

Australia, and many nations around the world, have long supported the right of citizens to stage peaceful marches and demonstrations to call attention to issues or highlight disagreements with public policy.

In some cases these protests have stepped from peaceful into legally grey areas - acts that constrain the ability of authorities or organisations to take certain actions. For example, people forming picket lines to keep out 'scabs', laying in front of bulldozers, chaining themselves to trees, placing a ship between a whaler and a whale, blockading the entrance of abortion clinics, striking, throwing shoes and custard pies or even 'fax-spamming' organisations to stop them receiving or sending business faxes.

For the most part these activities don't result in the participants receiving major legal penalties, either significant fines or gaol time.

However Australia, like most nations, doesn't always have the same tolerance for the online equivalent of these types of protest activities.

Online protests involving blockades of websites are termed 'denial of service attacks'. The goal is to restrict access to an organisation's website - slowing it down or causing it to crash and become unavailable for a period of time.

While it is in many respects similar to a picket line or 'fax-spamming', denial of service attacks on websites are illegal in Australia and many other countries.

This is for good reasons, as these attacks can be carried out by criminal organisations as part of blackmail operations, as acts of wars by foreign powers or even to break down a server's defenses in order to steal confidential information and personal details.
In fact the Australian Attorney-General's office has said that attacks such as this should not be seen as "legitimate forms of protest activity but rather are public nuisance akin to vandalism" (in the SMH article Action stations as cyber attacks on Australia soar).

(It is also worth noting that the same activity is not always illegal - Sometimes 'denial of service' is not an attack - such as when thousands flooded to government sites to find information on Victoria's fires in 2009 or the load on the Bureau of Meteorology's site during the Queensland floods.)

This leave citizens in an interesting position. Acts that are accepted as legitimate expression of freedom of speech in physical environments, and may occur incidentally online, are not always considered legitimate ways of expressing oneself on the internet.

I'm not advocating that denial of service attacks should be legal, however governments and citizens in Australia do need to continue to consider the legitimate and acceptable boundaries for protest activities online.

When does digital activism become unacceptable and illegal?

And do citizens recognise or share the same line in the sand as authorities?

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The age of microblogging has arrived - in China

Listening to the US's National Public Radio (NPR) last week, I caught a story about how Chinese citizens are now using micro-blogging services (similar to Twitter) to communicate about missing or stolen children and, in some cases to locate them.

According to The Guardian article, Chinese parents turn to microblogging in hunt for missing children, China has over 80 million micro-blog users (though very few Twitter users due to blocking).

By posting messages and pictures of missing children, and by putting photos of child beggars online, there's been at least half a dozen cases where children have been located and reunited with their parents.

In particular a Chinese professor created a microblog called "Street Photos to Rescue Child Beggars" in t.sina.com.cn. The microblog, which was only registered on 25 January this year, has already gained more than 200,000 followers, many being Chinese police officers. Thousands of photos of child beggars have been posted to the micro-blog by Chinese citizens (the criteria is that photos must show the face of the child and the location and time the photo was taken).

Of course the success of the micro-blog medium in China needs to be weighed with continuing government efforts to restrict debate on certain topics - as recently illustrated in this article in The Age, China micro-blogging sites censor 'Egypt'

Must read posts:

• Chinese professor creates microblog to end child-abduction and forced child beggars - Ministry of Tofu (warning - contains pictures of child beggars, some deliberately injured to improve their begging ability)
• How microblog is helping abducted children in China - Yoland Ma

News stories:

• Chinese microblog helps parents find abducted children - The National
• Microblogs spur action on child abduction - CMP
• Special Fund to Be Set up for Child Beggars - CRI

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How will states adapt to true telecommuters?

Today telecommuting often refers to people who work from home, logging into computer networks to prepare documents and exchange information remotely.

However across the world we're starting to see examples of much broader and more intense forms of telecommuting.

Warfare
Take for example the RQ-1 Predator, an unmanned aerial vehicle that has been used since 1995 by the US Air Force. First used for reconnaissance and armed only with a high resolution camera, the Predator is now routinely equipped with missiles and used to attack ground targets. Predator operators may be hundreds, or even thousands, of mile away and operate their UAVs through video screens like modern computer games.

Similar unmanned devices are being developed for land and sea-based conflict, allowing operators to work normal shifts from bases close to their homes (or even from their homes), while these devices are employed in combat theatres around the world.

Emergencies
Unmanned vehicles are also being adopted in the emergency management field, with controlled robotic devices used to explore hazardous environments ahead of human teams. These devices have been used to map the Chernobyl disaster and recently the CyberQuad was introduced into Australia to support the fire brigade in mapping and fighting large blazes.

Space exploration
Many people will be aware of the Mars Rovers, two robots sent to explore parts of the red planet, seeking signs of surface water and life while expanding our store of knowledge. These robots, similar to those used in emergencies, have been used as a low-cost means of exploring a hazardous and remote environment.

Health
There are pilot programs in a number of countries exploring the potential for doctors, particularly specialists, to remotely diagnose and treat patients. In a world with too few doctors and many remote regions, the ability to have a specialist diagnose patients from a distance is an enormous cost and time saving tool, providing improved health outcomes.

Even more so, the potential for videoconferencing during surgeries, where experienced surgeons can view and collaborate with an on-the-spot colleague during a procedure - or even conduct surgery remotely, employing robotics.

Adult industry
While an area that some might find less delicate, the adult industry has a long history of innovating and employing new technologies. Much of the early innovation on the world wide web had its roots in adult pursuits. Similarly adult operators are exploring the opportunities for remote controlled devices. In fact the field even has a name, coined in 1975, 'Teledildonics' - for computer or remote operator-controlled devices for sexual pleasure.

Entertainment
Virtual worlds and Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMPOGs) have been around now for a number of years (since 1974 in fact), some as games, some as social entertainment experiences and some as business tools. These worlds are growing in immersiveness and flexibility, providing more and more opportunities to conduct mass meetings remotely, demonstrate designs and working (virtual) prototypes and educate students.

Looking forward
With all these forms of 'telecommuting' developments there's three trends I think are important to note.

• We are increasingly able to control physical devices and perform complex actions at great differences.
• Our virtual environments are improving to the extent whereby almost-physical interaction is becoming possible, and
• we are entering a time where an increasing number of people will be able to conduct their business remotely from other states or nations, significantly complicating how taxes are assessed and laws are interpreted and enforced.

With increasing broadband speeds, such as via Australia's National Broadband Network, it will become possible for a range of telecommuting scenarios such as the following three examples.

• Remote mining exploration and analysisA geologist sitting in their Brisbane office will be able to take control of a contracted robot in the Northern Territory, remotely guide it to an exploration site and conduct a surface analysis and even a seismic survey to assess the mineral potential of the area.
  
  The information and analysis could be immediately visible to their employer, a Perth-based mining company. The site could be mapped digitally and then have geologists from around the world explore the area virtually - literally 'walking' their avatars over the landscape and discussing specific areas in real-time.

• Global industrial design
  Equally an industrial design team operating out of Newcastle as a semi-autonomous unit of a Swedish furniture manufacturer could develop new designs for bookcases and chairs and trial them via virtual worlds with other designers and potential customers around the world.
  
  When a final design is approved it could be automatically loaded into the systems of an offshore manufacturer and produced, either in a fully automatic or manual factory, then shipped to customers around the world.
  
  As a side project, the designs could also be made available for virtual sale into a range of virtual worlds and games, like the Sims - providing a secondary income.

• Remote entertainment experiences
  A resident in a nursing home in Wagga Wagga could remain an active gardener through participation in a robotised market garden in the Adelaide Hills. Every day they could go online and check how their plot was developing, using robotic devices to plant seeds, pull weeds and water. When their vegetables were grown they could be harvested and sent to market collectively, with the profits going to offset the costs of the market garden.
  
  Through virtual technology the resident could walk around, or even fly over the garden with complete mobility. Integrated sensors could simulate the smells and even the feeling of digging in the soil, keeping the resident both entertained and productive, raising their self-esteem and enjoyment of life.
  
  Residents from nursing homes around the country and overseas could work together, sharing their experience with plants and making collective decisions on how to manage the garden. (The original Telegarden was operational from 1995-2004 as a university experiment)

In all of these situations the data would pass through a variety of Australian states and through international jurisdictions. The individuals performing the actual work do not necessarily own the work, it could be a collaborative effort by individuals across different nations.

We're seeing the inklings of this process now with the increasing digitalisation of products. No jurisdictional restrictions on written, audio, visual or digital interactive material can be effectively and universally enforced when they can be transmitted almost instantaneously across the internet to virtually any country in the world.

The creators of these digital works may also be located anywhere in the world. Collaborators may each live in a different jurisdiction and be subject to different laws and regulation. Whose jurisdiction takes primacy for taxation purposes for a truly virtual organisation? What happens when a digital product is illegal in some jurisdictions and legal in others?

It is even hard to enforce regulation or taxation over physical products, unless governments wish to inspect every single mail item - adding enormous time and cost burdens to an economy.

Identifying which jurisdiction's guidelines apply can already be difficult - is it in the jurisdiction that the work originates, where the servers storing the information live, where the organisation is registered or where the goods and services are sold (at least for physical products, who taxes and regulates virtual items)? What if jurisdictions don't agree?

As teleconferencing becomes more prevalent and more global in nation, governments will increasingly have to reconsider their state-based laws, regulations and taxes to contend with hyper-mobile individuals, workers who can deliver a service using remote assistance anywhere in the world, from driving a delivery vehicle to performing operations, without leaving their own home or neighbourhood.

Perhaps governments should already be taking great strides towards normalising their regulatory approaches,to reduce inefficiencies and ensure that their laws and taxes will remain enforceable as telecommuting rises.

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The danger of permanent internet exclusion to egovernment and Gov 2.0

The internet is increasingly defining the 21st century.

It has become the primary medium used to find and share information, the most commonly used news and entertainment medium and has unleashed an outpouring of creativity which commentators, such as Clay Shirky have described as "the greatest in human history".

Equally there have been pressures to constrain aspects of the internet. Around the world a number of nations are blocking access to certain pages, websites and services - sometimes based on concerns on the appropriateness of content, sometimes due to economic or political pressure.

There have even been attempts, spearheaded by significant copyright holders, to block internet access for significant periods of time - or even permanently - from households or individuals accused of repeated copyright violations.

This last topic is worth debate in a eGovernment and Gov 2.0 context.

As governments shift information, services and engagement activities online there is greater expectation - and hope - that citizens will use the internet to interact with agencies.

By shifting services online governments can cut offices and employ less phone staff.

In a country where all citizens have the right to access the internet this is not an issue. Anyone who can engage online is encouraged to do so and offline government services can be reconfigured to suit audiences who are unable or unwilling to use the internet. Everyone wins.

However what happens in a nation where internet access can be denied to otherwise capable citizens, either for long periods of time or permanently?

What is the commercial impact after television and telephony have migrated to a (for instance) national broadband network? How would this distort these peoples' access to government services? What additional costs (at taxpayer expense) would government be forced to incur to service these people effectively? Does it exclude them from democratic participation or from vital health and welfare information?

I can't see any nation deciding to permanently cut access to an individual or household's telephony services because they used it to make a few abusive calls. Neither can I see any state denying a household access to electricity or water because one resident was convicted several times for growing illicit drugs via a hydroponic system in their bedroom.

However there are real threats emerging around the world that some individuals or households may be permanently excluded from online participation based on accusations, or convictions, for a few minor offenses.


An example is France, which enacted a 'three strikes' law in 2009. Reportedly record companies are now sending 25,000 complaints per day via ISPs to French citizens they are accusing of flouting copyright laws.

Under the law French citizens receive two warnings and can then be disconnected from their ISP and placed on a 'no internet' blacklist - denying them access to the online world, potentially permanently.

While this approach was designed to discourage illegal activity, early indications are that this doesn't appear to have succeeded as piracy may have risen. It also, apparently, has annoyed US law enforcement agencies as it may encourage greater use of freely available, industrial strength, encryption technologies, thereby making it much harder to distinguish between major criminal organisations and file downloaders and hurting law enforcement activities.

This is similar to an often-repeated storyline in Superman comics, when Superman can identify criminals as they are the only ones using lead shielding on their homes to block his X-Ray vision. If everyone used lead shielding, Superman couldn't tell the bad guys from the good guys (there's a future storyline for DC).


Most importantly a 'three strikes and you're off' approach - or equivalent law - risks permanently excluding people from the most important 21st century medium, simply for being accused three times of copyright violation. Arguably, in today's world, that's a much more severe judgement than people receive for multiple murders, rapes or armed robbery.

I don't see the Australian government rushing to embrace a similar approach, however it still raises the question of whether we need to consider internet access as a right at the same level as access to electricity or telephones.

Other nations are considering this as well. Several European countries have already declared internet access a fundamental human right, including France, which places the country in an interesting position.

The European Union (of which France is a member) has rejected a 3-strike law and, as Boing Boing reported, progressive MEPs wrote a set of "Citizens Rights" amendments that established that internet access was a fundamental right that cannot be taken away without judicial review and actual findings of wrongdoing.

As the internet has now moved from a 'nice-to-have' service to a 'must-have' utility for many people, even actual findings of wrongdoing may no longer be sufficient reason to permanently exclude people. In fact this may be legally impossible to enforce anyway, due to public access and mobile services.

Given the potential negative impacts on democratic participation, the ongoing cost to government and the potential commercial and social impacts - should it be possible for a government to legislate, a court to dictate or for ISPs to refuse to connect some citizens to the internet permanently?

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Benefits and risks of online collaboration with citizens (Workshop 1 CEBIT Gov 2.0 Conference)

Following on from our last exercise, Reasons for not releasing data in government, we've been discussing the benefits and risks of increasing (online) collaboration and consultation with citizens.

Below is what the room came up with (and discussed). Please add your own in the comments.

Note this is a raw dump - I've not sorted or categorised them.

Benefits

• Good source of expertise
• More engaged audience
• Better market research
• Target tools and services better by understanding clients better
• Meets desire of Ministers and top executives to get ideas from outside traditional channels/sources
• Increasing interest, access and understanding of information
• Provide a public face for agencies
• More effective way to get real-time information and warnings to communities
• Able to centralise queries – mitigate email traffic and reduce resourcing
• Increase public understanding of what agency does
• Find out ways and means different to those we use to get information out there
• Increasing transparency and accountability
• Providing a fair and reasonable process
• Ongoing 'focus' group
• Low cost engagement
• Allows agencies to understand how community wants information presented / services designed
• Allows 'completing the circle' engagement through a process (policy development/service design/etc) as there's an ongoing relationship with participants
• Reach more audiences than by traditional communications
• Helps attract high-performing staff (as agency is seen as proactive, forward-looking, collaborative and open)
• Can use a pre-registration process to determine potential response rate and demographics of interested parties, thereby allowing provisioning of right level of resources for management and analysis of collaboration outcomes
• Can provide context and explain complex issues in depth
• Can moderate responses – before or after publication (not possible in a face-to-face consultation)
• Can identify critical flaws in legislation/policy before becomes a major issue

Risks

• Muddied by media involvement
• Uninformed people commenting
• Administrative issues
• Generate too much work (too much work)
• Too few responses – embarrassment
• Security and privacy of participants' details (if agency runs collaboration)
• Afraid that people will be rude or abusive
• Lobby groups will dominate
• We won't do what some people say they want
• Public don't understand the context
• Content is not easy to absorb
• It will be hijacked by a particular issue in the consultation and other issues don't get enough time
• It will be hijacked by an unrelated issue (one that doesn't align with our policy framework)
• Slow and highly involved approval processes (both speed of response and cost of senior time)
• What if staff contribute as individuals
• Our staff won't be able to see the consultation (due to our internal security framework)
• Staff don't have experience in managing an online consultation
• Equity issues
• Accessibility issues
• Media might get hold of it
• Belief that any content on the web can be changed
• Could be hacked
• Can identify critical flaws in legislation/policy which become major issues
• Agency responses could be construed as providing advice which has legal implications
• Timing issues (election cycle and alignment with other consultation activities)
• Too many people involved and they don't agree with what an agency believes
• Too short a time allowed to build audience and discussion
• People will criticise the Department
• People will criticise the Minister
• May expose the lack of consultation
• The risk of NOT doing it (won't reach enough/right people, creating issues in the future, government looks like it is not consulting
• Accidental release of confidential information by agency
• Technology failure (Hardware/software issues and loss of information)
• Lack of staff social media guidelines
• Incorrect data
• Data breaching copyright (not our data)
• Differences in view on which agency/area is responsible and should manage the consultation

Any more that should be added?

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Reasons for not releasing data in government (Workshop 1 CEBIT Gov 2.0 Conference)

We're in the first workshop of the day at the CEBIT Gov 2.0 conference.

It is led by Andrew Stott, the Director for Digital Engagement for the UK government.

The first exercise of the day has been to come up with reasons that government may give for not releasing data online. I don't know if I'm happy or disappointed that our table did the best - coming up with 36 reasons (second was a table with 27).

I've listed them below - and added an additional set that Andrew says that he has also encountered in his role.

Note there are no value-judgements implied as to the validity of these reasons in specific cases.

Reasons for not releasing government data

1. Costs too much
2. No business case
3. Has commercial value
4. It could breach privacy
5. It's classified
6. It's not ours and we don't know whose it is
7. Unsure about quality
8. We don't know where it is
9. It's not our job
10. It's not in a useful format
11. I'm not authorised
12. People will misuse it
13. The minister will lose reputation
14. It's not ready yet
15. The department will lose reputation
16. Files are too large
17. We don't have enough bandwidth
18. Thin edge of the wedge
19. Can find it but cannot access it
20. It is out of date / too old
21. We only have it on paper
22. We don't know if we're allowed to do it legally
23. Our Secretary says no
24. We've never done it before
25. We don't know why anyone would want it
26. Don't see the value
27. Don't have time / resources
28. They can FOI it
29. We'll release it (but 90% redact it)
30. It is incomplete
31. It is incorrect
32. Commercially sensitive
33. Mosaic theory – could put it together with other data
34. People would focus on the wrong things
35. It may cause unnecessary public discussion
36. We can't confirm or deny we collect it

Here's Andrew's additional reasons:

• We know the data is wrong, and people will tell us where it is wrong, then we'd waste resources inputting the corrections people send us
• Our IT suppliers will charge us a fortune to do an ad hoc data extract
• Our website cannot hold files this large
• it's not ours and we don't have authorisation from the data owner
• We've already published the data (but it's unfindable/unusable)
• People may download and cache the data and it will be out of date when they reuse it
• We don't collect it regularly
• Too many people will want to download it, which will cause our servers to fail
• People would get upset

 Please add your own in comments...

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No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft...

It used to be said that no-one ever got fired for buying IBM products.

More recently much the same sentiment has been expressed about Microsoft.

However that perception now appears to be under challenge.

ReadWriteWeb reports in its article Google Sues US Government Agency Over Using Microsoft Only that,

Google has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior for requiring that messaging technologies must be part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite in order to be considered for procurement.

Apparently the case has some merit (the article goes on to say). While the Department had justified a Microsoft preference due to 'enhanced security', Google Apps were recently the first cloud service certified by the US Federal government's Federal Information Security Management Act certification.

This case, if successful, might see other software makers challenging US government requirements for vendor-specific solutions. Internationally it could even, over time, help open source and cloud application developers gain greater consideration in government procurement processes.

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Australian Government sets default copyright to Creative Commons by Attribution

Yesterday was a historic day for Australian intellectual property rights.

Ann Steward, the Australian Government CIO, announced that the Australian Attorney-General's Department had released an amended Statement of Intellectual Property Principles for Australian Government Agencies.

The amended version endorsed one of the Gov 2.0 Taskforce's recommendations - that the default copyright position for public sector information be CC BY rather than the existing Crown Copyright, which has been in place for over a hundred years.

This change is likely to get little media attention or fanfare, however it denotes a seismic shift in Australian government. From now on almost all information that is released publicly by the government will be legally reusable, modifiable and mashup-able by citizens and corporations without the need to pay money or ask for legal permission.

This unlocks a potential enormous economic driver for Australia. In the UK the value of open data has been estimated at 6 billion pounds per year, although it might take some time to realise gains like this.

Also historic - though maybe less so - is that this major shift in government policy was announced on a blog.

So what is Creative Commons licensing?
It is a form of copyright that is more liberal and flexible than old-style copyright regimes, however still allows organisations and individuals to manage the reuse of their intellectual property.

Creative Commons is recognised in over thirty countries and has already become the default position for UK government data. The US, New Zealand and Canada have also made steps towards adopting Creative Commons as their default government copyright license and the OECD has recommended that public sector data be made public in a raw and reusable form, licensed under standard open content licenses and priced as close as possible to zero.

More information is at the Creative Commons Australia website.

And what does it mean for federal government agencies?
When releasing future public sector information into the public domain, federal government agencies must use a default position of a CC BY (Creative Commons By Attribution) license. They may only use a more restrictive license after a process of ‘due diligence and on a case-by-case basis’.

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Legal benefits of social media use

I've been speaking with a few lawyers and solicitors lately regarding the risks of various social media initiatives and tools.

Today, over lunch, it struck me that lawyers rarely - if ever - speak about the legal benefits of social media, the ways in which the use of social media can provide better outcomes for organisation, in a legal sense, than 'traditional' approaches to listening, communication, consultation and engagement.

So I've made a stab below at identifying some of the legal benefits of social media - please feel free to add your own, or debate my views, in comments.


Identifying potential legal risks early
The first legal benefit is the capability to monitor social media to identify any emerging concerns or issues that could lead to future legal risks for an organisation.

People often speak openly online about their concerns and frustrations. A trend of similar issues can represent an emerging issue with a policy, system or service delivery function that could eventuate as a court case or even a class action.

Social media provides an avenue to identify these trending issues quickly and gives organisations an opportunity to address them before they 'blow up' into the media and legal action.


Audit trails
One of the major benefits of the online channel is the capability to capture and track user behaviour - particularly when a user is registered and signs into a service. This can provide legal benefits through a clear audit trail of an individual's online activities to either verify their story, or prove it untrue.

Where an individual claims to not have viewed particular material, or to not have agreed to certain terms and conditions, a digital trail can provide veracity - for example when signing up to a particular online service, changing contact details or revealing personal information.

I have seen cases in government where an individual has claimed that their online account had been fraudulently modified by another party however, through auditing the digital records, it became possible to prove that it was a relative authorised to use the account who had made the changes, preventing any type of legal action against the agency providing the service.

In a case unrelated to government, recently an iPhone log was used to prove that an individual was being falsely accused of rape and in other cases email records and the logs from websites have been used to prove or disprove an individual's involvement in particular matters.

Where government employs social media tools for activities such as stakeholder or community engagement or consultation and some form of log-in or other way to recognise users (such as through a Facebook or Twitter identity) is in use, it becomes much harder for individuals to falsely claim that they were unaware of certain information or otherwise prove statements that could lead to agency legal liability.


Accessibility
The internet can be a cost-effective way to provide documents and discussions during a consultation process in an accessible manner, avoiding the legal risk of breaching the Disabilities Act.

Rather than holding a consultation by mail, where mailed submissions are scanned in and either not provided online at all, or presented as images - totally inaccessible to screen readers - government can hold online consultations where every submission is typed directly into the consultation site.

These submissions can be reviewed and published online in a manner accessible to all internet users. They can also be printed (maybe in braille) or read out by a machine over a phone line for non-users.

This use of the internet for consultations is a very cost-effective way for organisations to meet their obligations under the Disabilities Act and avoid legal action for providing submissions in a non-accessible manner.


Inclusion (equalising access)
Using the internet in engagement activities, alongside other approaches, allows a much broader range of people to participate - minimising the legal risks of decisions where some audiences claim they were not consulted.

Often those who work nights, have day jobs, young children, are physically less mobile, geographically distant or otherwise have commitments are less able to participate in face-to-face discussion with a government agency or its representatives.

Where these people are affected by the outcomes of a face-to-face engagement process these people could feel excluded and unheard. In some situations, could lead to legal action against certain policies or decisions.

By using the internet alongside other approaches within an engagement process - via a forum, blog, facebook page, or similar means - a government agency can ensure that audiences unable to attend a physical event are heard and their views considered.

This increases their feeling of inclusion and lessens the risk of developing poor policy, reducing the risk of policy failures which could lead to legal action.


So there you are - four legal benefits from using social media that can reduce an organisation's legal risks (versus not using social media).

Can you think of any others?

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UK redevelops legislative database to support and encourage reuse

Brought to my attention by Mia Garlick via Twitter, the UK has redeveloped its legislative database with a focus on reuse by external parties.

The recently released site legislation.gov.uk covers 800 years of legislation from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

According to an article from Cornell University Law School, Legislation.gov.uk, John Sheridan, Head of e-Services and Strategy at The National Archives says that the site was designed to meet two objectives,

to deliver a high quality public service for people who need to consult, cite, and use legislation on the Web; and to expose the UK’s Statute Book as data, for people to take, use, and re-use for whatever purpose or application they wish.

The Crown Copyright for the site specifies that,

You are encouraged to use and re-use the information that is available on this site freely and flexibly, with only a few conditions.

This type of approach makes legislation vastly more accessible to the public and, through an API provided by the site, supports the development of applications and services that assist the public, organisations and lawyers to understand and apply the law.

More information on why and how the site was designed is available in the article referenced above.

Australia isn't yet at the same point. Our legislation, detailed at Comlaw, is not yet supported through APIs or other machine-readable data formats and is covered under a more restrictive licensing regime,

This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved.

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New Zealand government moves to encourage use of Creative Commons licensing for public sector data

New Zealand's government has just launched a Creative Commons-based approach for the standardisation of the licensing of government copyright works for re-use.

Named the New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL), the approach outlines the licensing government agencies should use when releasing copyright works and non-copyright material for re-use by third parties (preferablt 'no restriction').

The licensing approach does not apply for content containing personal or in-confidence information and various restrictions may be applied to content by using one of the variant Creative Commons licenses, though the government has specified that most public sector information should be released without restriction.

The launch announcement states that re-use of government material by individuals and organisations may have significant creative and economic benefit for New Zealand, a position that has been reflected by the UK, US and other governments.

While use of the licensing approach is not mandatory, the NZGoal document states that hoped that the NZ government hopes that agencies will embrace NZGOAL; license more of their copyright works on open terms; and open up access to more of their non-copyright material that may be of interest to the public, bearing in mind the potential benefits of doing so for both the public and agencies alike.

The Australian Government is also beginning to release material under Creative Commons licensing, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Geosciences Australia and the Department of Finance and Deregulation leading the way.

However at this stage no whole-of-government framework exists to provide guidance on how and when to release material in this fashion at federal level - although the Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) is in place in Queensland.

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Contribute to the draft Unofficial Australian Government Social Media Handbook

Lisa Howdin, who now works with me, has been compiling a set of guidelines and information around how to develop, write, manage and moderate social media tools in Government in the form of a wiki.

She's looking for contributions from people across Australian government who are working in this area and have learnings they can add.

If you've had experience operating a government social media channel, please consider sharing your ideas in this wiki so all of your peers across government can benefit.

If you're new to the area, the Handbook, whilst still in development, already has lots of useful information that might be useful to you.

Visit the Unofficial Australian Government Social Media Handbook at: http://government20bestpractices.pbworks.com/Unofficial-Aus-Govt-Social-Media-Handbook

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The legislative challenges of Gov 2.0 - such as enrolling to vote online

Government 2.0 has a number of challenges in Australia and around the world - developing the appropriate public sector culture, getting the right policies and technologies in place and, often overlooked, ensuring that our laws allow for the innovative use of online channels.

The latter challenge is being faced right in the ability for Australians to enrol online to vote.

Due to the Federal election the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has been inundated with people wanting to enrol at the last minute. The matter of online enrolment has been raised by GetUp!'s enrolment website which states "Enrol to vote: It should be easy!". Get Up! initially attempted to provide a web-based enrolment system, however this was disallowed by the AEC.

This was also discussed in a Sydney Morning Herald article, Hitch in plan to get voters on a roll a sign of the times.

This is a clear example of how our laws have not kept pace with technology. Australia's 1918 Commonwealth Electoral Act's section 101 (1) states that people must "fill in and sign a claim". The AEC has interpreted this as meaning that a physical signature is required to enrol to vote in Australian elections.

This makes it necessary for Australians enrolling to vote 'online' to print and hand sign their forms, either hand-delivering or posting them to an Electoral Office.

In one concession to modern technology, it is possible to scan a signed form and email it to the AEC - however a photograph of the form (which is for all intents and purposes a scan) emailed to the AEC is not acceptable.

There are likely to be many other areas where our laws are not designed for a digital society - with other clear examples being our copyright and defamation laws which are struggling to cope in a world where digital copies are cheap and fast to make and private comments are publicly visible online.

Based on these legal issues, beyond the work to adjust public sector culture or simplify online engagement, one of the real tests of many governments' commitment to Gov 2.0 will be in how they adapt their laws to suit a changing society.

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Infallability, government and Web 2.0

Many rulers, from the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the Czars of Russia, were seen as almost infallible leaders - divinely selected and empowered to lead their people. To question their wisdom, strength or decisions was often an offence that could be punished by imprisonment or death.

Most modern states are more lenient, however governments still place a high value on being seen to be authoritative, knowledgeable and, on occasion, infallible.

So what is the impact of new media on a government's aura of infallibility?

For a long time traditional media has been keeping governments honest. However it has relied on a relative few number of reporters providing information through an even smaller number of distribution channels. Commercial interests, limited access to information and various other restrictions have, on occasion, left many government decisions and policies with little scrutiny.

Now, with Web 2.0, almost every citizen is also a journalist and publisher. This makes it possible for almost the entire population of a modern state to keep its government under constant 24-hour scrutiny and analysis, covering almost every decision and policy.

How have governments responded to this?

Some have taken a censorship and imprisonment route, attempting to limit debate and scrutiny by imprisoning, or worse, the most vocal citizen critics.

However this isn't a route that many democratic states could (or would) choose.

Instead democratically elected governments can choose to embrace public scrutiny and, rather than attempting to maintain an illusion of infallibility, become learning organisations who acknowledge that they can continually improve their performance.

This is a huge mindset change for those in governments used to the limited scrutiny of traditional media. The change can take some time to embrace.

At the moment while some governments and their agencies have embraced scrutiny as an opportunity to improve their service delivery, policy and operations, others are still conflicted. There are still situations where some individuals in various governments attempt to control and close down public discussions or limit internal transparency through self-censorship and restricted internal communications channels.

These conflicted agencies are, in many cases, doing more harm to themselves than good. When it is publicly visible that the Emperor has no clothes, that a particular topic is of community interest or facts about a situation (potentially including videos, financial analysis and/or expert opinions) are freely distributed online, attempts to limit statements to an agency line can backfire.

In other words, attempts to protect an agency or Minister through controlling information can, instead, create greater risks to them. This activity can damage reputations, expose them as out-of-step or, in extreme cases, result in rolling heads.

Government agencies increasingly need to resist the need to control all flows of information and focus on ensuring that accurate information is available wherever people are having a discussion. They need to ensure that the community has access to the facts - both when government is right and when they are wrong.

This limits the damage of false claims and myths - when government has indeed made the most correct decisions. Equally it limits the damage and distress when government has made mistakes. This approach allows government to retain the respect and trust of the community, particularly when errors are quickly detected and corrected.

Possibly the greatest challenge for public servants related to this shift to open disclosure and less massaging of messages is that it is happening right now.

The Australian Government's Freedom of Information reform law was passed on 13 May this year, Victoria has begun adopting Creative Commons licensing in a proactive disclosure approach for public sector data and NSW's government recently appointed an Information Commissioner and the NSW Premier has directed Ministers and Departments to set "an example of unprecedented openness".

This makes it imperative for agencies to recognise that their environment has changed and adjust their internal processes as quickly as possible.

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Rating government performance online

Cheryl from the Victorian eGovernment Resource Centre recently brought to my attention the launch of the BrandKarma website.

The website aggregates information about top brands and allows the public to indicate whether they love, hate or want to watch them. It also allows comments and, in the best social networking style, the creation of personal profiles and 'friending' of others.

With a little more development the site will also probably support communities around brands - people who hate them and people who love them, potentially becoming a source of information and influence for others.

How is this important for government? Substitute 'brand' with 'agency' and you get a very interesting approach to rating government agencies and collecting user feedback.

It would be interesting to see how many people, for example, loved DIITR rather than hated them, and in comparison how many loved and hated DEEWR, DAFF, DHS or Defense - and why.

This type of site could make many public servants and politicians uncomfortable, just as BrandKarma is likely to make companies uncomfortable. However it also offers enormous opportunity for brands (or agencies) to engage, address their faults and, where necessary, turn community views around.

This type of internet-based public customer feedback is part of the new reality - just as PatientOpinion is now part of the UK's health landscape.

What is particularly interesting to me is whether governments will take the step of making it possible to publicly laud or complain about their agencies, or whether it will be left to the private sector - leaving government with less ability to influence.

Time will tell - but maybe not much time. It wouldn't require much modification to BrandKarma to launch GovernmentKarma.

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Is internet access a human right or a privilege?

There is considerable international discussion at the moment over whether internet access should be recognised as a fundamental human right.

The ability of the internet to allow people to communicate, access education, jobs, participate in democratic processes and to create businesses makes it a powerful force for opportunity. It helps the poor to help themselves out of poverty and the disenfranchised to have a voice.

A growing number of countries around the world have recognised the internet as a fundamental human right. France did so in July 2009 and Finland followed in October, making access to a 1Mb connection a right as an interim step towards making 100Mb access (the proposed speed of the Australian National Broadband Network) a right by 2015. Estonia, known for its forays into internet voting, and Greece have also made internet access a right.

A recent BBC survey of 27,000 people across 26 countries found that 79% of people agreed that internet access should be a human right. An even higher 85% of Australian respondents believed that internet access should be a right and 87% of Chinese respondents held the same view.

The United Nations is also moving slowly towards have internet access declared a universal human right.

Australia hasn't yet made any formal declaration about internet access, but has enshrined in law phone access as a legal right, through the Universal Service Obligation. I've not yet found indications of discussions by Australian governments or courts over whether internet access should also be singled out as a legal right.

So with all these steps occurring internationally, where is the opposition to declaring internet access as a human right?

A number of states around the world are already or are considering restricting internet access through universal censorship or means such as licensing individual internet users. Some states have even shut-down access to entire internet services or arrested bloggers and online commentators in attempts to control access to information and debate.

Commercial interests in a number of countries are pushing for laws that would allow them to require ISPs to cut internet access from households they suspect of information piracy without recourse to existing legal processes.

These approaches could oppose the concept of internet access as a fundamental human right as they may lead to situations where people are denied access to some legitimate online information (mistakenly or deliberately censored) - or could be permanently denied access to the internet altogether.

Both stem from a view of the internet as being primarily a news and entertainment medium without considering the broader uses of the internet as a communications and service delivery medium.

Telephone access is considered a fundamental right in many countries and few filter or block phone conversations based on content (though they may monitor conversations as a law enforcement activity). Telecommunications providers are not generally held responsible for the conversations of their customers and are not usually required to cut access to subscribers if they discuss or conduct illegal activities by phone.

Cutting people off from internet access permanently in response to illegal activity could easily become a life sentence to poverty. These people would be unable to enjoy the same access to services, information and communication as the rest of society, potentially leading to further criminal activity or permanent underprivilege.

The challenge for countries is how to successfully walk the path between open internet access and regulation of illegal material. Making internet access some form of legal or fundamental human right, while still ensuring that copyright owners' rights are respected and illegal online activity can be addressed and contained. Punishing wrong doers, without establishing an underprivileged class.

It will be interesting to see how different nations attempt to solve this over time.

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Social media nightmares

Inventorspot has compiled a list of ten of the top branded social media nightmares.

These are situations where organisations or their staff have been caught behaving badly, where social media campaigns went past the line of good taste or where organisations failed to get onto social media and were not able to become part of the discussion (to their detriment}.

It is an interesting list and shows some of the risks involved in social media - including the risk of not becoming involved.

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What does the White Pages ruling mean for Australian government data?

There is a trend towards greater openness in the licensing of Australian government data. Queensland's government a few years ago put in place a framework (GILF) for Creative Commons licensing and Victoria's government recently committing to using Creative Commons as its default copyright licensing system.

Some steps have taken place at a federal level, with both the ABS and Geosciences (see their footer) moving in the same direction.

However the recent court case where Telstra sued the publishers of Local Directories over the republishing of Yellow and White pages information - and lost - marks a further step in the process.

In the case, Telstra Corporation Limited v Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd [2010] FCA 44 (8 February 2010), the judge found that Yellow and White Pages listings were not covered under copyright law as they were not original and that (requoting from the news.com.au article Telstra loses copyright case over Yellow Pages and White Pages,

"None of the people said to be authors of the Works exercised 'independent intellectual effort' or 'sufficient effort of a literary nature' in creating the (directories)."

"Further, if necessary, the creation of the Works did not involve some 'creative spark' or the exercise of the requisite 'skill and judgment'."

This case follows a related decision in the IceTV case in 2007, where Channel Nine claimed that its TV Guide was a literary work and IceTV could not create a copy of it through independent effort.

So what does this mean for similar forms of government information released under Crown Copyright such as transport timetables, budget accounts, lists of elected officials, statements of interests and other lists and statistics which did not require 'creative spark', 'independent intellectual effort' or 'sufficient effort of a literary nature'?

I am not a lawyer and don't trawl all the legal cases reported online on a regular basis, however to my knowledge no Australian state or federal government department has recently gone to court against individuals or corporations replicating and reusing statistical data of these types. So there is no actual ruling I am aware of to test whether this government data remains legally protectable under Crown Copyright.

In at lease one case, involving NSW RailCorp in early 2009, cease and desist letters were sent by RailCorp's lawyers (to three iPhone application developers). This didn't end up in court as the resulting publicity brought the situation to the attention of the then NSW Premier who ordered RailCorp to negotiate arrangements to share timetable data with less stringent copyright provisions.

I believe that a reasonable supposition at this time is that where publicly released government data does not meet the required tests in the copyright case, it would be difficult to prove why it should be protected under Crown Copyright.

This would make copyright over lists of names and figures very hard to justify.

I do appreciate that government departments have concerns over information being used in inaccurate or misleading ways, or that people may rely on out-of-date information through third party sources (a particular concern for transport networks). However Crown Copyright may not be the most appropriate tool to mitigate these risks anymore.

Maybe we need to look at other approaches, such as making it easier for third parties to use data in the way intended - such as providing data feeds at consistent URLs for reuse (which means third-party applications will be as accurate as the government figures), ensuring that data labels are human readable and clear (to reduce misinterpretations) and including date stamps in data so it is clear when it is current from and to.

In cases where data is used inappropriately, government still has recourse through Creative Commons type licensing and other aspects of Australia's legal system to restrain this usage while supporting appropriate use.

Further comments and legal views by lawyers and interested parties are heartily welcome!

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Safe and effective social media use by government agencies

There's been a very active and engaging discussion in the Gov 2.0 Australia group regarding safe and effective social media use by government agencies.

I thought it was a topic worth discussing in this blog.

One of the challenges government agencies face is whether or not to get involved with the discussions already occurring about their programs, activities and actions.

Whether departments like it or not, we do come under public scrutiny in forums, blogs and social networks regarding our decisions and conduct. There are very active discussions on how to correctly engage with agencies and interpret particular departmental policies and guidelines (The Child Support Agency forum at the Family Law WEB Guide is one example).

One result of all of this discussion is that misunderstandings occur. Helpful people offer suggestions and interpretations that are inaccurate. This can grow into misinformation and can spread quickly across social media channels - where it remains publicly findable for years.

This information can even become more findable in search engines than the relevant information in our own agency websites. This can easily lead to people making decisions which later affect them in negative ways.

Traditionally government's approach has been to communicate repeatedly that people need to call us or seek out our official documents and web pages on topics to get the correct information.

However this doesn't reflect human behaviour. Many studies have indicated that people trust information from their peers more highly than information from institutions or corporations.

In my view when organisations chose to not engage in legitimate social media discussions they could be causing damage. Damage to individuals who rely on inaccurate advice from online sources and damage to their own reputations due to misinformation.

I believe that the best way to combat this is to counter misinformation at its source - in this case within the same social media channels. Note that this doesn't mean responding to EVERY comment in EVERY online network (which isn't feasible for any organisation), but it does mean responding to well-trafficked legitimate online channels where the impact is most significant.

Many agencies, particularly service delivery agencies, inform and advise the public every day by phone, email or postal mail, providing one-on-one information to support citizen decisions.

I have come across views that while this is fine, placing the same information in public channels (such as via social media) would create extra legal risks. If an agency representative provides incorrect information over the phone the error (and risk) is limited to that person, whereas if incorrect information is provided in a public forum it affects many people.

I don't agree that it is necessarily true that the legal risk is less via phone conversations (or similar one-to-one channels).

Firstly if information is provided over the phone it can still be shared publicly. People discuss phone calls and letters, sharing the information they have been given. Sometimes they even record and publish them online.

Secondly where a phone call is to an agent such as an accountant, lawyer or social worker the advice they pass on to their clients can affect many people. The risk is not limited simply to the person at the other end of the phone.

Also government already publishes information publicly. It does so in its website, in publications, through presentations and through advertising.

Simply providing accurate information in response to questions in social media channels, or in response to misinformation can go a long way towards helping customers achieve the best outcomes for them.

It also helps others who find the information through searches. They will find the correct information alongside the misinformation and have a better chance of making the best decision.

So where is the real distinction

Someone suggested in the Gov 2.0 Australia discussion that it was between information and advice. It was suggested that much of the risk occurred when people mistook information for advice specific to their circumstances. Several general examples were given where information provided by phone or face-to-face was misinterpreted as advice, acted on and resulted in legal action.

This type of misunderstanding can clearly occur through any channel and doesn't, in my view, mean we should treat social media as a special case. In fact social media may provide some advantages over phone or face-to-face conversations, as in a public forum your disclaimer can be clearly seen alongside the information. In a conversation the other person may misunderstand and there's potentially no record for the courtroom.

However this risk does highlight the need to be very clear in how we are communicating via different channels and clearly differentiate between advice and information.

I believe this can be covered in social media by providing clear disclaimers in messages outlining who is speaking, what is being posted and the terms of the interaction.

I've provided some examples below of what I mean. Please not that the example text below is illustrative only and is not approved by any Australian government department or agency. Please have appropriate disclaimers for any online engagement you undertake approved through your own agency. Please ensure all online engagement is pre-approved by your agency.

• Identify your agency affiliation clearly (and if possible establish an official account to post through): "Hi, I am XXXX from the Dept of XXXX, posting on behalf of the Department."

• Make it clear that you are posting information, not advice: "In response to the comments in this thread/XXXX's comments about XXXXXX, here is some information that might be useful."

• Link to available official information (where it addresses the topic) rather than repeating it in the forum (in case the information changes over time): "Information on this topic can be found in our website at WEBADDRESS."

• Make the nature of your comments clear: "This is general information only, if you wish specific advice on your circumstances, please call us on XXXX XXX XXX or email XXX@agency.gov.au."

• Make the limits of your engagement clear in a standard disclaimer: "The Dept of XXXX monitors this forum and may respond from time to time to provide information to support customer decisions. We do not provide personal advice through this forum for privacy reasons. If you require advice on your specific circumstances, please call us on XXXX XXX XXX or email XXX@agency.gov.au."

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South Australian Premier vows to repeal internet censorship over election comments

As a follow-up from my post yesterday,South Australia bans anonymous election comments online, South Australia Premier Mike Rann has twittered that the South Australian government has decided to repeal the January 6 amendment to the state's Electoral Act which made it illegal to publish anonymous comments online during an election campaign.

Reported in a post in Ars Technica, Internet uprising overturns Australian censorship law (which is an excellent read), South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson sent a statement yesterday to AdelaideNow, where many citizens were protesting the new law, stating that,

"From the feedback we've received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively... It may be humiliating for me, but that's politics in a democracy and I'll take my lumps."

Note that I assume this statement is based on the assumption that the present South Australian government is re-elected. If another party wins power, the law may stand.

Australian online pundits are labelling this a victory for democracy over censorship and I expect to see the example of South Australian's decision used by opponents to the Australian federal government's planned mandatory internet filter.

I've included the key tweets from Premier Rann's validated twitter account below...

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