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 It is out of date / too old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• People may download and cache the data and it will be out of date when they reuse it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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Why use social media tactics in public sector communications

Madeleine Clifford, a communications and stakeholder engagement director in the APS, has posted some advice on her blog for public sector communicators who don't yet see reasons for using social media in their campaigns.

It could be useful for you, or for someone you work with - check it out at Implementing social media tactics into public sector communications.

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Short takes for public sector management Part II

Almost exactly a year ago (on 28 October 2009) I posted a set of four videos from the 'Shift happens' and 'Did you know?' series, mapping the changes in society and growth of the internet through a range of statistics.

It is time to update this - with the latest videos on the same topic - looking at the changes just over the last twelve months.

They're a wake up call. Share them around.

BTW - here's 12 things you need to know about Facebook (Australia) from Hitwise's Alan Long.

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Australia loses top 10 position for national leader tweeters

At least 33 national leaders around the world are now tweeting through official accounts - that's 20% of the world community.

Under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Australia was fourth on a list of the top ten tweeting world leaders, however with the transition to Prime Minister Julia Gillard our position dropped to 14th.

A report from Digital Daya, World Leaders on Twitter: Updated Ranking Report - October 2010 (PDF 698kb), maps out the tweeting behaviour of 33 world leaders. It also makes it clear that tweeting is not only for English speaking democracies - a variety of nation states are represented including Turkey, Chile, Russia, the Philippines, Rwanda and France.

It's an interesting glimpse at how world leaders are bypass traditional media channels, using a direct way of speaking to their people to engage without message distortion.

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