{"id":122835,"date":"2014-06-04T21:11:29","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T21:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=122835"},"modified":"2014-06-04T21:11:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T21:11:29","slug":"freedom-information-audit-singles-federal-government-among-worst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/freedom-information-audit-singles-federal-government-among-worst\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom-of-information audit singles out federal government as \u2018among the worst\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"text combinedtext parbase section\" style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<p>A new report on Canada\u2019s freedom-of-information laws slams the federal government for its poor performance in making computer data public, even as the Harper administration touts its \u201cOpen Data\u201d policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text combinedtext parbase section\" style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<p>Newspapers Canada directly tested federal, provincial and municipal transparency laws with almost 400 formal requests for information last October and November, the 10th annual audit carried out by the organization.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text combinedtext parbase section\" style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<p>This year\u2019s version added 172 requests for electronic data sets, requiring the information to be provided in a format that can be digested and manipulated by computer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text combinedtext parbase section\" style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<p>Most government bodies fell short, many insisting on providing the data requested on paper, or providing it in the electronic equivalent of a photo \u2013 impossible to process in a spreadsheet or database program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text combinedtext parbase section\" style=\"color: #000000;\">\n<p>Among the worst performers were some departments of the federal government, which has been promoting its \u201c<a style=\"color: #0072bc;\" href=\"http:\/\/data.gc.ca\/eng\" target=\"_blank\">Open Data<\/a>\u201d agenda as evidence of transparency, including the proactive posting of some 200,000 data sets online.<\/p>\n<p>The audit found that Prime Minister Stephen Harper\u2019s own department, the Privy Council Office, refused to release any information in electronic format, insisting on paper printouts.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/canada\/2014\/06\/04\/freedomofinformation_audit_singles_out_federal_government_as_among_the_worst.html?\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report on Canada\u2019s freedom-of-information laws slams the federal government for its poor performance in making computer data public, even as the Harper administration touts its \u201cOpen Data\u201d policy. Newspapers Canada directly tested federal, provincial and municipal transparency laws with almost 400 formal requests for information last October and November, the 10th annual audit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1616],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-122835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news","7":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}