1. Information Policy
Concepts and Principles
.
Sharon Dawes
ICEGOV 2009

2. Overview
• Information policy environment
– Policies reflect their social & political settings
– Many stakeholders, actors, and roles
– Environments change, policies follow
• Two kinds of information policies and policy
roles for government:
– Value-driven policies
– Instrumental policies

3. Policy types and governmental roles
Government as Instrumental
information collector, Information
producer, provider policies
and user
Government as
Value-driven
regulator of information
Information
flow in society
policies

4. Social and political concepts that underlie
information policy choices
• Public speech and communication
• Diversity of information sources
• Individual choice and autonomy
• Government openness
• Government regulation
• Role of private enterprise

5. Policy choices reflect
social & political values
• Speech and communication: encouraged censored
• Diversity of sources: many few
• Individual choice & autonomy: protected restricted
• Government openness: transparent secret
• Government regulation: light heavy
• Role of private enterprise: encouraged limited
High Low
Free flow of information in society

6. Value-driven
information policy themes
• Government transparency
– Embodied in information access laws, records management and archival
requirements, public meetings and reporting laws
• Individual rights and autonomy
– Embodied in polices on free speech, privacy, and confidentiality
• Diversity of information sources
– Embodied in treatment of the press and role of the private sector
regarding information sources and services
• Intellectual property
– Embodied in copyright, patent, and trade provisions

7. Value-driven information policies as
balancing mechanisms
To balance conflicts among three information values:
Access
Ownership Privacy
To balance an information value against another policy concern:
Info Other
value policy

8. Type I conflict
How best to implement,
operationalize, or set the
boundaries of an agreed
upon information policy
goal:
Example: Is personal privacy
best protected by government
regulation or self-regulation by
industry?

9. Type II conflict
An information value in
conflict with another social,
political, or economic goal
How to balance personal privacy
against the need for domestic
security following 9/11?

10. Type III conflict
An information value in
conflict with another
information right or value
Does web-based peer-to-peer
music sharing constitute a
form of access or a violation
of the ownership rights of
music producers?

11. Instrumental information policies
Instrumental
Government as
Information
information collector,
policies
producer, provider
and user
Government as
Value-driven
regulator of information
Information
flow in society
policies

12. Instrumental policies
• Use information (or rules or policies about information) to
achieve some other policy goal
– e.g. environmental quality, social equity, market fairness
• Used to influence individual or organizational choices
and behaviors
– e.g. requiring chemical manufacturers to publicly report toxic
by-products encourages improved processes that reduce
pollution
• Used to create and manage information resources as a
public good.
– e.g. data collected and published about demographics or the
economy

13. Instrumental policy principles
Stewardship
Usefulness

14. Information Stewardship Principle
• A conservative principle that addresses:
– treatment of government information as a fiduciary
responsibility of all agencies
– data collection decisions and methods
– data definition, quality, and integrity
– information architecture, standards, and frameworks
– information and system security
– confidentiality protections
– records management

15. Information Use Principle
• An expansive principle that addresses:
– government information as an asset of society
– information sharing within government & with others
– information-handling skills of public employees
– information and technology as agents of change in
• programs
• services
• the relationship between government and citizens

16. Principles of information use
within government
Stewardship
Usefulness

17. Summary
• Value-driven policies
– Information as the object of policy
– Government as regulator of societal information flow
– Conflicts among values are inevitable
• Instrumental policies
– Information as a means to achieve some other policy goal
– Government as information collector, user, disseminator
– Stewardship and usefulness principles are equally
important

18. Information policy creation, change
and development mechanisms in
Global context
Evgeny Styrin Ph.D.
Visiting scholar
Center for Technology in Government,
SUNY Albany
ICEGOV 2009
Bogota, Columbia
April 22, 2010
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19. Why information policy? – Establish and
implement certain principles in working with
information
• Equal rights to access information
• Price of information obtained
• Danger and damage prevention caused by information
• Privacy and security of information
• Intellectual property
• Quantity and quality of information in Governance
• Cultural identity preservation
• Overcoming the digital divide
• Processing information (creation, update, deletion)
• Responsibility for information ownership and use
• Requirements and standards of work with information
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20. Political parties
Regional and Business
local communities and
governments unions
Information policy
Experts,
researches, Bureaucracy
scientists
Legislative
Citizens
authorities
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21. Key players and their interests in
information policy
• International Organizations (WTO, UNDP, WB, IMF, OECD) –
recommendations, standards, principles
• Intergovernmental Unions (EU, UNASUR,CAN, CIS)
• National States
•Political parties
•Business communities and
unions
•Bureaucracy influence Information Policy
•Legislative authorities
•Citizens
•Experts, researches, scientists
•Regional and local
governments
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22. Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society –
2000 (G8) Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT
Force)
– Seizing Digital Opportunities
– Bridging the Digital Divide
– Promoting Global Participation
– Building Human Capacity
– Promoting E-Commerce (Legal Framework)
UNDP Global Summit (2 stages, Geneva 2003,
Tunisia 2005)- 175 countries
– Information Society Development Principles Declaration
(Geneva 2003)
– Action Plan (Geneva 2003)
– Tunisia Commitment
– Tunisia Information Society Program

23. Geneva Action Plan 2003
• E-government • Cultural diversity
• E-Business • Ethics
• E-Health • International
• E-Employment Collaboration
• E-Education • Mass Media
• E-Ecology • Evaluation of E-
• E-Agriculture development
• E-Science
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24. Tunisia Information Society
Commitment and Program 2005
• Confirm Geneva Action Plan 2003
• Develop financial mechanisms of Digital Divide
overcoming
• Internet usage regulation
• All kinds of partnerships in ICT projects
• Freedom of information search, usage, receipt especially
for knowledge creation
• Integration opportunities
• Cybercrime protection steps
• Building trust and human potential
• ICT infrastructure
• IT-strategies development in every country (not later
than end of 2010) – POVERTY REDUCTION!
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25. Basic mechanisms of Governance
related to information policy
• Decision making
• Conflict resolution
• Change implementation
• Experience transfer
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26. Decision making
• What information do we need?
• Why do we need it?
• Does it let us make better decisions?
• How do we use the information?
• Do we obtain better results? (communities and
their demands, land, property, population
registers, territory and ecology, health records
history, educational resources, cultural
heritage)
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27. Conflict resolution and controversy
in goals
• Privacy vs. Accountability and Transparency
• Right to access information vs. National Secret
• “Pay for information” vs. “Get it for free”
• E-document vs. Paper document
• Controversy among information policy
documents on different governance levels and
different sectors and branches of state activity
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28. Information policy change or
evolution factors
• Sign or adopt new international standards and
agreements (UNCITRAL)
• Enter new political unions, blocks and
organizations (EU membership)
• Implementing changes in National Strategy
• Lobbyism (different sources) and Interest
Groups
• Legal framework (new definitions, rules)
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29. Producing information policy change
Legal Framework Formal and informal rules
Political Institutions
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30. How to improve information policy for the
agency – Administrator’s Guide (Balance
Between Risk and Trust)
External
Conflict Decision
environment Evaluation
resolution making
identification
Build trust, support and feedback within your stakeholders
Establish or join agreements, frameworks,
Identify network (social media for professionals, knowledge sharing,
external environment demands,
standards, glossaries
Evaluate effectiveness
discussion platforms) Develop info policy document as a tool for your
changesFind out conflicts, controversies (legal context, political feedback
Get stakeholders’
goals achievement (build guidelines, apply for
Formulate problems
environment, informal rules) modification, give detailed instructions, avoid
laws
Identify,Make your and study appropriatehigh level of abstraction)
choose goals more clear ambiguity and
Identify the desirable outcomes
Use public expertise (involve NGO’s, experts,
experience readiness and resourcesrelevantchanges and policy
Assess other for the stakeholders)
Identify implementation internal stakeholders of new info policy enactment
external and Identify mechanism
Identify and manage risks of possibleunderstanding, control)
(awareness, changes in information 30
policy Staff training

31. Information Policy Organizational
Infrastructure (Governance Culture
2 opposite points)
• Carrots vs. Sticks?
• Recommendations, informality and autonomy
vs. Orders, legislative formalization and
penalties
• Leadership vs. Participation
• Transparency in problem solving vs. Back
stage activity
• Frequent vs. Rare activities in success
evaluation, strategy adjustment, new issues
discussion
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32. Information policy
Establishing principal agreement
– All elements of agreement between the levels of government
including the purpose, roles and responsibilities, terms and
conditions
– Description of the parties, governance structure, commercial
arrangements,
– Legislation authorizing the proposal and legislative/policy
requirements
– Information to be exchanged &/or integrated services to be
provided, limitations on access, use and disclosure of
information, confidentiality requirements, information
protection and management, disposal of information, audit
requirements
– Dispute resolution processes and sometimes
liability/responsibility clauses in various circumstances for
failure to abide by terms and conditions or for negligence or
privacy breach
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33. Experience transfer in information
policy adoption
• ICT development goes with different pace
• Many countries face the same problems
• There exist a number of solutions based on
different cultural and traditional legacy, political
regime, strategic goals, structure of economy and
society
• Benchmark solutions and pick up those based on
similar reality to yours
• Adopt solutions according to country’s
peculiarities or develop new solutions
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34. Small group discussions
• Identify problems and approaches in your
government to share with all tutorial participants
• Themes
– Legal framework
– Institutional change
– Strategies/mechanisms for policy making
– Government transparency
– Citizen’s information rights