Public Sector Information in the Digital Age

Citation

Lee, C. (2005), "Public Sector Information in the Digital Age", Information Technology & People, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 405-407. https://doi.org/10.1108/09593840510633338

Public sector organizations, “government and administrations on whatever level (communal, regional, federal) or institutions under government control regardless of their legal status”, (p. 3) produce and accumulate a vast amount of information covering most aspects of the functioning of the society. Public sector information (PSI) is a key resource for a broad range of stakeholders and plays a significant role in the proper functioning of national economy. In addition, PSI has a considerable social and economic potential from its unique properties (Hadi and McBride, 2000). However, the cost for managing the massive information has been mainly paid by taxpayers. Therefore, public sector organizations often receive enormous pressure either to share these resources with the private sector or to exploit the information more economically themselves, while being challenged by people to make these resources accessible more easily and quickly (p. 4).

Such pressures are getting higher and more complicated as emerging technologies, such as the Internet, provide new opportunities and capabilities to introduce open government and improve access to PSI (Irani et al. 2005). “What is the solution? What is an adequate equilibrium between public and private interests in public sector information?” (p. 4). Public Sector Information in the Digital Age: Between Markets, Public Management and Citizens' Rights, edited by Georg Aichholzer and Herbert Burkert, proposes solutions by providing an overview of key issues and challenges of access to PSI and the role of public policy. This book is comprised of 7 parts and 16 chapters, and each part discusses the key issues from various stakeholders' views.

“How far should privacy protection limit access to public sources of information?” (p. 23). Privacy is one of the most critical and controversial issues with respect to PSI in the society. The book examines this significant issue from many different perspectives across the book. There is almost no general objection to the right of access to PSI, and the obligation to ensure the accessibility of information held by public sector organizations is considered an essential requirement for any democratic society. Especially, in these days, there is an increasing demand for accessing information more quickly and easily with emerging technologies. However, people also want their personal data to be well protected from other access. The answer is not so straightforward (p. 23), but these contradictory objectives are able to be reconciled in public policy (p. 288). Therefore, the book provides a good overview of many relevant policies and legislation across the globe and suggests guidelines for future legislation using previous cases such as the Norwegian legislation, which has developed into a complex body of regulations.

Public Sector Information in the Digital Age also examines the relationship between public policy of PSI and national economy growth by comparing public policies in Europe and the United States. Many nations across the globe are embracing the concept of open and unrestricted access to PSI. However, the level of accessibility varies across the globe, especially in Europe and the USA. PSI policy in the USA is mainly based on the premise that government information is a valuable national resource and that the economic benefits to society are maximized when taxpayer‐funded information is made available inexpensively and as widely as possible (p. 137). This open and unrestricted access policy to PSI has resulted in the rapid growth of information‐intensive industries, particularly in the geographic information and environmental services sectors. On the other hand, similar growth has not occurred in Europe due to restrictive government information practices (p. 93). More importantly, the restrictive public sector information access policies often block innovation or further development of information products. This book proposes a guideline for future public policy formulation by identifying a number of barriers preventing the reuse of PSI and limiting the possibilities to set up cross‐border information services based on PSI.

Digitization offers many advantages to public sector providers as well as receivers. However, it also brings new technological, legal, and economic challenges (p. 217). Due to their position as incumbents and their ability to access some information more easily than private sectors, public sector organizations accumulate a vast amount of information. Digitizing the massive information accumulated over decades is a significant challenge to many public sector organizations. The most important question is how the raw data can be digitized and used in an economically and technically feasible way (p. 235). Public Sector Information in the Digital Age addresses all the issues related with public sector organization using real examples, including the meteorology and public broadcasting industry.

The authors provide an excellent guideline for future public policy with respect to PSI, but the authors also remind us that it is not feasible for this book alone to provide all the solutions for the challenges of PSI access and public policy. Therefore, in the final chapter, this book lists a series of areas which should be investigated in the future.

There are some limitations of this book. The cases and examples covered in this book are all from Europe and the USA. Thus, it does not effectively cover the trends and issues of PSI from a truly global perspective. Another limitation is that the book focuses exclusively on privacy related policies and legislation, so the issues such as commercialization of PSI, which is considered as one of the most critical issue in these days with respect to PSI (Hadi and McBride, 2000), are not extensively covered.

In summary, this book is one of the first attempts at providing an overview of the issues and challenges related with public sector information, and it surely will benefit all levels of audiences. I highly recommend this book for any student or scholar interested in this important area.