[LINK] Office of the Information Commissioner Online?

[Tom Worthington]

Last week the Australian Labor Party announced its policy for the 
reform of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws:

"MERGE privacy protection and freedom of information in a new Office 
of the Information Commissioner to streamline and fast-track 
information policy across government. ..."
   From: Rudd to break secrecy code, MICHAEL OWEN, News Limited, 
October 27, 2007 02:15am 
<http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22655386-5006301,00.html>

Last week I was teaching a class of public servants (mostly from the 
Australian Government, but one from another national government) on 
how to use XML technology for electronic document management 
<http://tomw.net.au/moodle/course/view.php?id=8>.

In an exercise on Thursday I asked the class how to automate the 
release of government electronic records 
<http://tomw.net.au/moodle/mod/assignment/view.php?id=108>.

The problem is that the volume of electronic records will overwhelm 
the current manual FOI process. Some academics have suggested going 
to the other extreme, by making all electronic government records 
available automatically 
<http://arts.anu.edu.au/democraticaudit/misc/aspgbehonestminister.pdf>. 
That proposal has its own problems, which the class pointed out in 
their answers to the exercise.

One of the class suggested setting up a new government agency to 
handle the release of records. Coincidentally, the ALP released its 
policy proposing just such an agency: The Office of the Information 
Commissioner (OIC). So for the examination on Saturday, I asked the 
class how to implement the IT system for the OIC, using XML and web 
technology <http://tomw.net.au/moodle/mod/assignment/view.php?id=135>.

The obvious way to do this is to use the same tools and techniques as 
now used for transferring electronic records from agencies to the 
National Archives, but speed it up. The National Archives free open 
source "XML Electronic Normalising of Archives" (XENA) and "Digital 
Preservation Recorder" (DPR) software tools are now used to process 
electronic records extracted from agency systems, such those based on 
Tower Software's Trim <http://tomw.net.au/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=128>.

The OIC staff could use an online federated system to search the 
records of all agencies. OIC staff would then place an automated 
request for relevant records with each agency for retrieval. It would 
only need a few seconds for the system to extract the records, but 
perhaps a day would be allowed for the agency to review the records 
and release them to the OIC. XENA and DPR would catalog and format the records.

The OIC staff would need to be security cleared and their systems 
would need to be secure. However, this is something that oversight 
commissions already have to deal with day-to-day in government. When 
at the Commonwealth Ombudsman's Office I had to look after IT systems 
for dealing with with sensitive materials from agencies, including 
security agencies.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, ANU