Open the door on state information… join me in a mission for the public good
Do you want to make a difference? If so, welcome....so do I.
Yesterday I tweeted looking for people who may be interested in contributing to a web project for the public good but with 140 characters there's not much you can say about it. So here is my idea.
But, first let me make something clear. This is not funded, will never make a cent, and will be driven by people who care, like I do, about information and its power in society.
If you're still interested, this is what it is about.
South Africa has pretty good access to information law and it is being used increasingly by journalists, lawyers, political parties and activists to get state entities to hand over some important information. We've had some success as a team of journalists at Media24 in using this
law too which is what had further inspired my own interest in its
potential.
By 2009, according to this report , South Africans had were filing 20,000 access to information request a year.
That's a pretty impressive number of applications and my mind-boggles at the potential information which is being discovered by everyone filing these applications which could be of interest beyond those who initially filed the request.
That got me thinking. Wouldn't it be brilliant to have a single, searchable, digital collection of as many documents as possible that have been obtained through access to information appliciations in South Africa? The body of knowledge would be amazing.
This is what I imagine it to be:
* A site where people can upload their original access to information application forms, providing a library of potential templates for others who may want to file similar applications;
* A site where people can upload documents gained from access to information applications which can be searched and used by other citizens and provided in the public interest;
* A site which contains great tips and interactivity for those who are freedom of information activists to share advice and guidance;
* A site which provides form submission functionality for citizens to file access to information requests to any state entity using a database of contact details of information and deputy information officers responsible for various departments, municipalities and other state entities.
If we can build this and if we activate people to upload and share even a small portion of what they have obtained through access to information law we will be building one of the most incredible resources available in South Africa.
But this is where I need help.
Given enough time I could probably hack this together myself with my rather elementary knowledge of Django etc but it would be a lot easier if there were people out there who are pro developers who were willing to assist build something special.
So these are the kind of volunteers and collaborators I am looking for:
* Developers keen to contribute their time and skills build a site that sings!
* Designers/graphic designers who can make it look cool!
* Journalists, activists, lawyers, citizens with fire in their hearts and a belief that information can work for the public good!
The payback? The eternal thanks of millions of South Africans.
If you are keen to be involved in this in anyway, please contact me. Get me on @andrewtrench on twitter or mail me on andrewjohntrench@gmail.com
September 21st, 2011 - 12:52
Hey Andrew.
Great initiative. There are already similar small experiments ‘liberating data’ elsewhere in South Africa, and further north. I’m personally working on something similar, in Mpumalanga, with a bit of seed funding to create a repository for PAIA data, leaked info, and crowdsourced supplementary evidence supplied by citizens + my own investigative newsroom at AENS. We’ve already aggregated a large amount of original source info (some of which stretches back to 1994, detailing the source evidence in many of Mpumalanga’s most outrageous scandals & political murders). We have started building the online repository, with tech support from similar projects in the Global North. We’ve also spent the past six months building a coalition of local civil society & hacktivists / activists, who are helping us cast the net even wider.
So, it would be great to link our initiatives out here in our region with your campaign.
But, we’re not the only ones active in this field. Fellow travellers include the Open Democracy Advice Center (down in Cape Town), the SA Historical Archives (@ Wits University), the Southern African Legal Information Institute (in Jo’burg), and Black Sash (also in Cape Town), who are all doing similar things in their parts of the civic ecosystem. In fact, ODAC & SAHA have just started collaborating on building a centralised PAIA portal, that will give citizens templates, tips, and step-by-step guidelines for tabling requests, that then tracks the process of submitted requests, & that stores the resulting information in a central databank of “liberated” public information. The envisioned portal will also give resources / guidelines / support for whistleblowers, & will help citizens who are stonewalled by putting them in contact with legal aid centers or case workers at ODAC & elsewhere for advice & possible assistance / representation.
What is very important, is that SAHA’s involvement means that professional archival methodology will be applied to managing the “liberated” info, so that it remains a meaningful resource long into the future.
So, my suggestion is: rather than duplicating efforts, or even worse, working at counter-purposes, let’s rather pull together all these diverse projects into a single, coherent, properly resourced campaign (similar to how we built Right2Know).
By doing so, we’ll ensure that we’ve build in some longer term sustainability as well, because organisations such as ODAC, SAHA or SAFLII could serve as the custodians & curators of what is effectively the repository of all our ‘civic knowledge’.
Cheers,
Justin