As part of its participation in the COST A14 Action "Government and Democracy in the Information Age" (www.belspo.be.cost/), ITA held an international symposium on "Access to and Ownership of Public Sector Information" on December 7, 2001, at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
The symposium contributed to the scientific discussion of issues related to the social, political and economic aspects of access to public sector information and its digitisation. Materials of the presentations can be found at the archived conference homepage. A book publication on the subject, giving a wider perspective has been initiated as a follow-up project.
This timely volume reviews key issues and developments in the controversial area of public sector information (PSI). It addresses the fundamental themes, challenges and conflicts surrounding the access to, and use of, PSI in the new digital era. Using detailed empirical analyses and case studies from across Europe and the USA, the authors focus on the crucial policy, economic, legal and social issues.
The public sector is the biggest single producer and holder of information including administrative and government documents, regulatory texts, political data and public registers. The authors demonstrate that this huge store of information is a key resource for a broad range of stakeholders such as citizens, civic organisations, private businesses and public sector agencies. They argue that charging the marginal cost of dissemination, a policy favoured in the US, will lead to optimal economic growth in society and will far outweigh the immediate perceived benefits of aggressive cost recovery. They illustrate how open government information policies create significant economic advantages to society and are beneficial in both the short and long term for the general public, the private sector and for governments themselves.
This is one of the first books devoted to addressing the new challenges of access to PSI and the role of public policy. The international contributors, including leading experts from Europe and US, have produced an informative and coherent resource that will be of interest to scholars, students and decision-makers working in the fields of public policy, economics, political science, law and information technology.
In this paper we discuss the main challenges faced by electronic government initiatives. First, the components of and the demand for electronic government services are identified. Then we point out infrastructure requirements on the technological level for both the service providers and the customers. Organizational challenges are discussed with a focus on integration and coordination requirements. The need for regulation is shown in respect to public information access and security concerns with transaction services.