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Government Secrecy in the Era of Openness: An ACARM Symposium

Room G22/26, Senate House, University of London

19th June 2015

Small World:Orwellianism, Openess & Onliness

UN Declaration on Human Rights (Art. 19) New Public Management & Sunshine

Legislation - Openess (Good Governance as condition of loans by multilaterals)

Information Age & Onliness (Web 2.0, Social Media and Mobile)

Open Government Partnership

Government Secrecy - Disclosure

Orwellianism/ State Surveillance (E-FOIA , Patriot Act/USA Freedom Act, Prism, TIA)

Privacy (Not the same as ‘Secret’) Disclosure Advocates (Wikileaks, ACLU) Public Interest (Not the same as ‘Personal’

Interest)

Government Secrecy - Privacy

Currently on the law books of over one hundred and three (103) states, this type of legislation operates under the following principles:

• Freedom of information as a legal and enforceable right. • There should be a presumption in favor of disclosure and

Governments should promote a culture of openness. • The right of access to information may be subject to limited

exemptions but these should be narrowly drawn. • Government should maintain and preserve records. • In principle, decisions to refuse access to records and

information should be subject to independent review

Freedom of Information

Of the 20 Caribbean countries, 8 have FOI laws (Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, St. Vincent, Antigua, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Guyana), 5 have drafted Bills (the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, St. Kitts, St. Lucia) and 7 have no laws at all (Montserrat, Dominica, Suriname, Haiti, Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands);

Freedom of Information Act (1998) - Belize Freedom of Information Act (1999) - Trinidad & Tobago Access to Information Act (2002) – Jamaica Freedom of Information Act (2003) - St. Vincent & the Grenadines Freedom of Information Act (2004) – Antigua & Barbuda Freedom of Information Act (2007) – Cayman Islands Public Access to Information Act (2010) – Bermuda

FOI in the CARICOM Region

6

COUNTRY

FOI LAW COMPLIANCE& APPEALS

LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK

Privacy/Data Protection Act Whistleblower Act

Official Secrets

Act

1. Belize

FOIAct, 1994/2000 Ombudsman _____ ______

2. Trinidad & Tobago FOI 1999Ombudsman

Data Protection Act, 2011_____

3. Jamaica ATI Act, 2002 Appeal Tribunal _____

Protected Disclosure Act, 2010

4. St Vincent FOI Act, 2003 High Court Privacy Act, 2003 _____ 5. Antigua FOI Act, 2004 IC (appt’ed) _____ _____

6. Cayman Islands

FOI Act, 2007 IC (appt’ed) Data Protection Bill Working Group _____

7. Bermuda Public ATI Act, 2010

IC ( to be appt’ed)_____ _____

8. Guyana ATI Act, 2011 IC (appt’ed) _____ _____ 9. Bahamas

FOI Bill, 2012 _____ Data Protection Act, 2007 _____

10. Barbados

FOI Bill, 2008 _____

Data Protection Act, 2005_____

11. Grenada FOI Bill _____ _____ _____ 12. St Kitts FO Bill, 2006

_____Privacy and Personal Data Protection Bill, 2012 _____

13. St Lucia

FOI Bill_____

Privacy and Data Protection Bill, 2007 _____

2/13/2015 Prepared by: Aylair Livingstone

Status of FOIA & Related Laws in the Caribbean

How will these types of legislation affect Records Management?

The Records Unit must ensure:

Reliability (i.e. continuous and regular operations);

Integrity (i.e. control measures for monitoring, authentication, authorized destruction and security);

Compliance (i.e. all requirements arising from current business, the environment etc);

Comprehensiveness (i.e. all records resulting from business activities are given complete coverage);

Systematic (i.e. there must be a structured and organic process created, maintained and managed to support the RM programme).

Support for FOIA - Maintaining Total Quality RM

n. 1. The careful editing (of a document), esp. to remove confidential references or offensive material. 2. A revised or edited document. – redact, vb. – redactional, adj.

Black’s Law Dictionary, Seventh Edition (West Group, 1999)

Redaction

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment... You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

-- George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

END OF PRESENTATION