2. Agenda
What is an Information Society
Why are Information Policies needed
What is an Information Policy
Who has Information Policies
Information Policy in Ireland
3. What is an Information Society
A society where the creation, distribution, use,
integration and manipulation of information area
significant economic, political, and cultural activity.
Economic counterpart = Knowledge Economy
Successor to Industrial Society???
4. Theories of ‘Information Society’
: Sample
Machlup – patents & research
Knowledge Industry, sectors
Drucker – materials based > knowledge based economy
Bell – no. of employee > in sector = indicator of
informational character of society.
Other theorists include :
Porat
Touraine
Lyotard
Sonntag
Stehr
Toffler
Van Dijk
5. Castells – Network Society
The key social structures and activities are organized
around electronically processed information networks.
10. History of Information Policy
Image http://www.personal.psu.edu/glh10/ist110/topic_old/topic01/topic01_02.html
11. What is an Information Policy
Information policy is the set of all public laws, regulations and
policies that encourage, discourage, or regulate the creation, use,
storage, access, and communication and dissemination of
information.[1] It thus encompasses any other decision-making
practice with society-wide constitutive efforts that involve the flow
of information and how it is processed.[2]
[1]Weingarten, F.W. (1989) Federal Information Policy Development: The Congressional perspective. In C. McClure, P. Hernon and H. Relyea (eds), United States Government Information Policies: views and Perspectives (Ablex, Norwood, NJ).
[2]Braman, S. (2011). Defining information policy. Journal of Information Policy 1-5. http://jip.vmhost.psu.edu/ojs/index.php/jip/article/view/19/14.
Can be anything
1. How you manage your privacy settings on Social networks
2. Government strategy (Infrastructure, Policy, Law, Regulation)
3. Corporate plan
12. Elements of Information Policy
E-Inclusion
Life Long Learning
E-Business strategies
Infrasture – physical (broadband/e-fibre)
Infrastructure – political / Legal and regulatory
Copyright, Intellectual Property, Data Protection, Freedom
of Information
Regulation of Domain Name Spaces ( .ie)
E-government
15. Freedom of Information (FOI)
Image: http://wayne-newsyoudontsee.blogspot.ie/2011/04/what-freedom-of-information.html
16. Censorship
Is not a thing of the past.
Banned books week 2013 in the USA
Image http://blogs.furman.edu/com221sp10d/2010/04/07/12-months-of-censorship-in-china/
17. Data Protection
About your right to privacy
EU Directive 95/46
Principle: individuals should be in a position to control
how data relating to them is used
18. ISSUES
Digital environment: intellectual property,
economic regulations, freedom of
expression, confidentiality or privacy of
information, information security, access
management, and regulating how the
dissemination of public information
occurs.
20. Issue: Privacy
Habermas:
Public and private sphere
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4tLsTt9LxM
The NSA has huge
capabilities – and if it
wants in to your computer,
it's in.
• Explaining the latest NSA revelations – Q&A
29. Data Protection - Ireland
Data protection acts 1998 & 2003
Data protection commissioner
Data protection is about your fundamental right to
privacy.
You can access and correct data about yourself.
Those who keep data about you have to comply with
data protection principles
30. FOI – Ireland
Table from http://www.oic.gov.ie/en/Publications/Special-Reports/10th-Anniversary-Publication-Freedom-of-Information-The-First-
Decade-/Freedom-of-Information-The-First-Decade.pdf
32. Advantages of having an
Information Policy
Get the best of web 2.0 (ie non-static web
pages – interactivity)
Influence people paying attention to the
social aspect of these socio-technical
systems.
Secure the preservation of digital content
Bring about information production
33. Future needs
Needs to be flexible, and change to meet ever evolving
circumstance as the ability to access, store and share
information continues to grow.
DNA / Genetic information
Medical privacy
We can consider than in very primitive societies, the individual held all the power. As social organizations became more complex, the need for a minimal coordination comes evident: tribes got their chieftains to guide the collective.
The growth of communities and the need to strengthen coordination — especially against the “threat” of other communities — imply (amongst other factors) the militarization of a society and, sooner or later, the seizure of power by the military chaste. Warlords and absolute kings (and also Pharaohs, etc.) do not only rule but also reduce the degree of freedom of their subjects:
Many claim that the Information Society is empowering back individuals, and it well may definitely be true: never before as now can people or people have the potential to freely act, create, speak, reach out… within the given system. But it may also true that,never before as now is governance — as the power to change the system — so far from the citizens’ reach… even of their direct representatives, which are controlled by higher powers, most of them out of anyone’s jurisdiction. Like in an hourglass, the distribution of power is shifted to the (upper and lower) edges, the question being: who is playing the role of the transmission chain between these two edges?
Information goes through a lifecycle from creation to collection, organisation/classification, dissemination and destruction, laws an policies are needed for each stage of this cycle.
This lifecycle informs what need an information policy, and other information related policies like data protection copyright and information security policies.
For one they are needed for legal reasons associated with the development of technology and society and it’s people responding to this technology, especially the digitisation of cultural content – from music downloads to images of the book of kells. Digitisation reduces production costs, but has also seen an increase in the exchange of file – illegally or of unauthorized copies (Napster controversy is an example of this). This exchange can take place online, p2p or via hardcopy off line. It created a grey area. Because it had economic impact something was done about it via information policy. The music industry demanded regulation.
This is also the origin of those lovely anti-piracy sections at the start of our dvd’s.
Information policy shapes many aspects of society and set boundaries as they set a framework to evaluate issues in relation to the life cycle of information and the it’s use.
Organization information policies reflect this in that they Look at the interaction between tech and people, where using information is the aim of the interaction, issues include who sets the policy where it’s top-down or middle-down, AND how the organisation’s culture influences the complexity of it’s information need.
Wikileaks (Social computing example), and Edward Snowdon exposed the approach taken by the National Security Agency regarding e-mail, and monitoring – even going so far as to monitor ‘friendlies’ like the EU, Russia, and Brazil – who’s PM cancelled a state visit in protest today. Not just about governance for them, it’s about access to information in advance of an oil right sell off soon.
Issue: Privacy
How to protect personal information with all this dev and innovation going on, how to abide by privacy laws, regulatory convergence is needed hand in had with the technological convergence for this kind of synergy. It is leading to the merging of industry based laws in favour of a single legal and regulatory framework.
Convergence aims to deliver improved performance via really diverse technical systems, which have evolved like the media, telecommunications, broadcast, computing, via digital computers.
This can result from the need to expand into new markets, due to competition, and technological advances, or the threat of new entrants, to the value chain.
Convergance aims to have disparate tech’s interact synergistically. To deliver info in a new and unique way via inventive solutions.
These innovations involve adding data and layers of connectivity.
For example social networks have added e-mail capabilities.
Search engines integrate data from Facebook and twitter, twitter has been used as part of emergency responses. Consequently gov.s have looked for social networks to install monitoring of these e-mail systems, and utilize them.
SECURITY v FOI
PATRIot ACT gave security precedent over civil liberties, allowing wire tapping of voice and data communications, allowing the US government access to e-mail. Carrying out e-survelliance against anyone, counter to 4th amendment rights against search and seizure. It doesnt’ just impact on the USA as this summer’s controversy with wikileaks and Edward Snowdon show! It effect us all as we live in a globally connected world. With cloud computing your data could be stored anywhere.
Austrian students sue Facebook under Irish law.
Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. Patriot act passed in the shadow of 9/11.
On May 26, 2011, President Barack Obama signed the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011,[2] a four-year extension of three key provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act:[3] roving wiretaps, searches of business records (the "library records provision"), and conducting surveillance of "lone wolves"—individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities not linked to terrorist groups.[4]
Opponents of the law have criticized its authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants; the permission given law enforcement officers to search a home or business without the owner’s or the occupant’s consent or knowledge; the expanded use of National Security Letters, which allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to search telephone, e-mail, and financial records without a court order; and the expanded access of law enforcement agencies to business records, including library and financial records. Since its passage, several legal challenges have been brought against the act, and Federal courts have ruled that a number of provisions are unconstitutional.
Under data protection legislation, you have a right to find out, free of charge, if a person (an individual or an organisation) holds information about you. You also have a right to be given a description of the information and to be told the purpose(s) for holding your information.
You must make the request in writing. The person must send you the information within 21 days.
The data protection commissioner looks at issues for the individual, organisations and services like those utilizing direct marketing .
For example they provide guidance to HR departments on issues as wide as staff monitoring and biometrics.
They approve codes of practivces for sectors, for example the Gardaí, Insurance Sector and Revenue Commissioners.
1922 civil war decisions were taken by the Irish government and emergency powers were passed in the Dail. These decisions included execution, censorship and internment. A serious level of secrecy was instilled over those horrifically dark days. The cabinet decisions and true account of the on goings in 1922 have never fully been released and some records which have been released are causing public uproar.
1980 – Ombudsman Act : allowed individual citizens to have their grievances against government departments and local authorities investigated by impartial officials
Beef tribunal in the 1990’s highlighted the gap in the area. The irregularities caused by Goodman had politicians questioning each other’s credibility.
FOI act 1997 & 2003. 1997 Act McCreevey attack on the basis of cutting costs in finance, as a consequence applications for information halved in the next years. For example the c.€15 fee for non-personal information. 2003 – lengthened the time until cabinet papers are released from 5 to 10 years. A new Act is in the ether… what will it contain.
Request must be in writing to the Public Body that holds the records.
When you make a request you must:
submit the request in writing along with the appropriate fee , if applicable, to the Public Body that holds the records you are looking for (regarding fee – see "FAQ" number 7)
specify that the request is being made under the FOI Act
be clear enough so that the public body to whom the request is addressed understands what records are being requested. In cases where the public body is not clear what records are being requested, it must assist the requester to put his/her request in such a way that the records being sought can be identified.
Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) was established on 1 December 2002 - See more at: http://www.comreg.ie/about_us/about_us.472.html#sthash.lOi6lApe.dpuf
Roles (What we do)
ComReg is the statutory body responsible for the regulation of the electronic communications sector (telecommunications, radiocommunications and broadcasting transmission) and the postal sector. The national regulatory authority for these sectors in accordance with EU law which is subsequently transposed into Irish legislation.
ComReg enables competition in the communications sector. In a rapidly evolving sector, both in technological and commercial terms, ComReg provides the framework for the introduction of new services such as 3G/ 4G.
The focus of regulation for the postal service in the partly liberalised market is the maintenance of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and in ensuring that An Post prices are geared to cost.
Activities are geared to operators and business & residential users of communications services.
See more at: http://www.comreg.ie/about_us/roles_what_we_do.523.html#sthash.oObcZOoI.dpuf
Responsibilities include: promoting competition, for protecting consumers and for encouraging innovation;
Protecting and informing customer
Promotion of competition
Encouraging Innovation
- See more at: http://www.comreg.ie/about_us/roles_what_we_do.523.html#sthash.oObcZOoI.dpuf
While Informaiton policy shapes many aspects of society
It can lead to the production of goods and services for sale to the customer – ie e-bay and google in Ireland.
Cost of informaitn varies depending on the tangible god at hand
The digitization of information leads to better justification of business ideas.
Two recent laws promoting medical privacy are HIPPA: This law provides some privacy for medical records
GINA: This is the first law dealing with genetic privacy