Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I'd like to start by thanking the standing committee for the opportunity to appear here today and take part in your deliberations on open government.
I'm here to represent my boss, the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian. Dr. Cavoukian, unfortunately, was not able to be here today, but she sends her regards and regrets. Dr. Cavoukian would like to express her thanks as well that the committee thought to invite the Ontario Information and Privacy Commission.
You may be aware that Dr. Cavoukian and the Ontario commission have the responsibility for overseeing Ontario's two access to information laws: the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which applies to provincial organizations, and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which applies to organizations at the municipal level. These two acts may differ in scope, but at the end of the day they both have the same goals; that is to ensure that citizens have access to information to enable them to participate in public life and the political process, and that public servants and politicians are held accountable for their actions.
My role at the commission is as the assistant commissioner responsible for what we call our tribunal services department. It would be my staff who are responsible for handling access to information appeals when citizens feel that the government has not appropriately responded to their request. I would point out as a matter of interest that unlike the federal Information Commissioner, Dr. Cavoukian has the right to require government organizations to disclose information.
I know you've heard a lot of terms probably over your last few weeks. Guy speaks of open data. Other presenters have talked about open government. The terminology that I use will be coloured by my experience as a member of a tribunal that oversees access to information laws. I may, for example, speak more often about proactive disclosure than you may have heard before. But I think at the end of the day, regardless of terminology, the presenters you're hearing, and my two presenters here today and I, are generally speaking about the same objectives.
I'd like to start, if I could, to just give you a little bit of context and background about the Ontario experience. I think it's difficult to talk about open government if at a minimum there is not a fully functional access to information regime in place. In many ways, that is the bedrock on which the concept of open government and open data can be built.
I think in Ontario we've made some significant strides in that direction over the last few years. Let me give you a couple of examples. Like other access to information acts, the Ontario acts require government organizations to make a decision to an access to information request within 30 days. Back when I joined the commission in the late nineties, the number of requests that were being responded to within that 30-day period was around 48%, which was absolutely unacceptable. However, through the work of our office and some very good work done by provincial public servants, that response right now is on an annual basis over 80%. It's not perfect, but I think it shows a recognition by the government of the importance of an access to information regime.
I can also point out that the scope of our acts has been increased within the last few years. In 2006, universities were brought under the ambit of the Access to Information Act, and legislation was introduced last December that will bring hospitals in Ontario under the act as of January 1, 2012. It's embarrassing to say that Ontario was the last province to make that step, but again, I think it's significant that two major gaps in our legislative landscape have been filled.
One final example of some progress we've made that begins to get into the area of open government is that now in Ontario it's a requirement for government ministers and senior civil servants to proactively disclose their expenses. Those expenses are available on our website. So it's a small step in the direction of proactive disclosure and open government.
We've been dealing with this issue of proactive disclosure and open government for years, since the commission came into effect in the 1980s. We're really in a different world now than we were then. The dissemination of government information is so much easier to do now that we're out of a paper-based world.
Increasingly, I think, governments are recognizing that public sector information is a public resource. I look at something like the Australian task force that you've been referred to, and I think it encapsulates the growing sense among governments when it says that releasing government-held information on “as permissive terms as possible will maximise its economic and social value...and reinforce its contribution to a healthy democracy”. I think that one segment out of the Australian report really sums up a very important issue.
It may go without saying that the concepts of open government and open data have the full support of my commissioner, Dr. Cavoukian, and, I believe, commissioners across the country. I believe you heard last December that there was a resolution passed by federal and provincial information and privacy commissioners in Whitehorse in September that embraced the concept of open government. Certainly, Dr. Cavoukian, as the Ontario commissioner, fully supports those ideas.
You'll be hearing from others, and have already heard from others, about how to put this into action. I thought in the remaining time I have that I would talk to you about a modest program or our modest contribution—we hope—to open government. That is a program that Dr. Cavoukian launched called Access by Design. We see the concept and principles of Access by Design as the next logical progression as governments look towards the disclosure of government-held information and move into the world of open data.
Some of you may know that Dr. Cavoukian is a world-recognized leader in the area of privacy. In that world, she championed what was called Privacy by Design, which has now taken on a very significant role internationally, both in governments and in business when it comes to how to address privacy issues. The basic concept behind Privacy by Design is to embed privacy into the design and operation of information technologies and systems. In other words, it is to address the privacy issues as you're developing a program rather than as an add-on later. We see Access by Design as a flip side of that very same concept. We believe that governments should be taking a more proactive approach to disclosure, but we do recognize that Access by Design embraces much more than simply proactive disclosure. These are the issues of open data and open government that you have been hearing about.
We have, in support of our Access by Design program, developed seven fundamental principles, which I think have been made available by the clerk to you. We hope and we believe that this set of principles will assist in guiding government organizations as they move into the world of open government and in determining what information to make available to the public and how to do that.
I'm not going to go over all seven. I would just like to touch on a couple of them. The first one, not surprisingly, is to be proactive and not reactive. I have already touched on that idea. We understand that although it's important to have a formal access to information regime, it can be slow, it can be cumbersome, and it can be used by some organizations to delay the release of data. It's time now to move beyond that into a proactive stance, in terms of disclosure of information. Really, it's only in those limited instances--for example, where personal privacy may be at issue--that government should be looking to resort to, or to fall back on, a formal access to information regime.
The second concept I wanted to talk to you about was embedding privacy into design. That's number two. We view this as critical.
When governments are designing new data sets or when they're designing new programs, consideration should be given even at the conceptual stage to how access to this information will be facilitated. Rather than approaching access as an issue to be dealt with down the road, perhaps in response to an access to information request, governments should be looking at what information they're collecting, what value that information may have, who may want that information, and how they can effectively make it available to the public. We think that by designing access in at the beginning, the benefits of open government and open data can be experienced.
Here are a couple of other thoughts that I think tie in to some of the comments that Guy made. Number four among our principles was fostering collaboration, and I think it's important. I think Guy outlined very well how, when government makes information available, members of the public, the private sector, the non-government sector, or even other government ministries may take advantage of that information and produce some very valuable products from it.
While I was preparing for these comments last week, I came across an article in The Globe and Mail that I thought captured this idea. It's entitled “Data Bank a one-stop trove of GTA, regional housing stats”. I won't read the whole thing, but it starts by saying:
How many Toronto families are waiting for social housing? How many rental units are available across the city and how much do they cost on average?
In advance of next week’s Greater Toronto Summit, the CivicAction Alliance has unveiled a data bank of housing information for the GTA and surrounding regions, which brings together up-to-date statistics regarding housing, poverty and population trends.
The data are compiled from Statistics Canada information, municipal data and reports from the non-profit and development sectors, and provide a comprehensive picture of housing needs in the City of Toronto as well as the surrounding regions....
I think that's an excellent example of the collaborative spirit that Guy was talking about.
I'll finish my remarks. I just wanted to say that I'm very familiar with the work that Guy is doing at the City of Ottawa. I believe last week you heard from Dave Wallace from the City of Toronto. They're doing tremendous things in this area. I would encourage you to spend 15 or 20 minutes on their websites. You might be surprised at the type of information that's available.
Thank you very much.