During the 6th Internet Governance Forum (IGF), an international forum mandated by the United Nations to focus on Internet governance, that took place in Nairobi, Kenya from the 27th to the 30th September 2011 the Workshop 123 Organisers undertook an awareness survey amongst the 2000 plus participants from around the world on their awareness of a number of key elements that support the implementation of a public sector information – open government data policy framework. The survey was a support action for Workshop 123 “Public Sector Information online: towards a Global policy framework”. (There is also a report on the workshop itself)

The report produced by Ms Keisha Taylor on the survey titled: Awareness Survey on Freedom of Information and Data Protection Legislation and Open Government Data Initiatives has been published. The survey report illustrates that a lot more needs to be done to improve understanding of open government data and public sector information within Internet Governance and ICT Policy circles. Some respondents were unaware of the existence of freedom of information and data protection legislation in their country or believed that laws existed when they did not. However, the existence or non-existence of these laws and the way in which they are used and applied has a direct impact on many other Internet Governance and ICT Policy issues.

The report concludes:

For a global public sector information policy framework to be useful more needs to be done to inform other stakeholders about why the availability of public sector information is of importance to them and their countries. They must also be aware of the data protection and freedom of information legislation that exists to acknowledge and influence amendments needed to be able to develop a national or global public sector information policy framework. Awareness and understanding of terms that those in the open data world use widely such as open government data needs to be better explained. Also given almost half of respondents did not know of the Creative Commons Licence model a lot more must be done to enable those working on other Internet governance and ICT policy issues to understand what this is and how it can be of use to them. This survey was not meant to be rigorously scientific, but only give a snapshot of how much and what people know about freedom of information data privacy and open government data in their country. This information provided also needs to be mapped against the actual existence of such laws and initiatives in each country.

The following summary has been copied from the full report on the Open Government Survey undertaken during the Internet Governance Forum (IGF6) held in Nairobi:

55 people completed the survey from 27 countries – 34% were from Kenya and 56% were from African Countries.

What is Open Government Data?
60% of respondents indicated that they knew what open government data meant.
27% of respondents were not sure what open government data meant.
10% of respondents did not know what open government data meant.

Data Protection Legislation
When asked if they knew about the existence of data protection legislation in their country of residence.
49% said yes
29% said they did not know
20% said no

Freedom of Information Legislation
When asked if they knew about the existence of Freedom of Information law in their country of residence
10.9% said that they did not know if it existed
32.7% said that it did not exist
55% said that it did exist

Creative Commons License
47% of respondents said they did not know what the Creative Common License was
53% did know what it was.

The countries included in the survey included amongst others:

Belarus, China, Fiji, France, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Korea, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, The Netherlands, Uganda, UK, USA and Zimbabwe.

The full report is available from our PSI library, and embedded below.

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