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Italy Seeks 'Right To Know' Data Act To Open The Door On Government Transparency

Italy Seeks 'Right To Know' Data Act To Open The Door On Government Transparency

18.09.2014 12:16

The EU's "mature democracies" rank low globally in terms of government transparency. But a new Freedom of Information Act in Italy promises to make the country an open data pioneer in Europe. In the wake of the Silvio Berlusconi era - which some say was especially opaque and unaccountable to Italian citizens - Italian NGOs have launched an aggressive bid to press that country's parliament to adopt a Freedom of Information Act along the lines of similar laws in the US and the UK. The movement is led by Antonella Napolitano, who feels Italy can be a leader on transparency in Europe. "We are advocating for a freedom of information act in Italy because we have a very old and very narrow access to information law that is totally not up to international standards," Napolitano told DW. Napolitano says Italians were outraged in 2009, when the then prime minister, Silvio Berluscconi, declared that "the Italian press had too much freedom." Napolitano's group FOIA Italia did not agree. Their resp

The EU's "mature democracies" rank low globally in terms of government transparency. But a new Freedom of Information Act in Italy promises to make the country an open data pioneer in Europe.



In the wake of the Silvio Berlusconi era - which some say was especially opaque and unaccountable to Italian citizens - Italian NGOs have launched an aggressive bid to press that country's parliament to adopt a Freedom of Information Act along the lines of similar laws in the US and the UK.



The movement is led by Antonella Napolitano, who feels Italy can be a leader on transparency in Europe.



"We are advocating for a freedom of information act in Italy because we have a very old and very narrow access to information law that is totally not up to international standards," Napolitano told DW.



Napolitano says Italians were outraged in 2009, when the then prime minister, Silvio Berluscconi, declared that "the Italian press had too much freedom."



Napolitano's group FOIA Italia did not agree.



Their response? To mobilize Italians from Parma to Palermo in an aggressive, grass-roots lobbying campaign to overhaul the country's transparency laws.







Citizen involvement is a cornerstone of the FOIA Italia movement. Indeed, the NGO has drafted its proposed "right to know" law in a very transparent way.



"What we did is write collaboratively a draft for a Freedom of Information Act that we would like to get passed," explains Napolitano. "And the draft is now on the website and open for comment and more collaborative efforts."



"Dritto Sapere"



Napolitano says the law, known in Italian as "Dritto Sapere", or "right to know," will make it possible for Italians to monitor their government - something they can't easily do right now.







"The access to information law in Italy is basically the reverse of a similar act in the UK or the US," Napolitano says. "You can only ask for information where you have a personal, direct, and qualified interest."



That basically means companies bidding on a public tender can use the existing laws to get information on their competition. But the general public and even the media face major hurdles when they want information.







L'Aquila Earthquake jolted Italians



Italians were again outraged in 2009 after the L'Aquila earthquake, which killed 308 people and displaced a further 60,000.



The public was particularly incensed by the partial collapse of a hospital and a university dormitory.



Napolitano says people were angry that they couldn't find out who had built the unstable buildings and why regulators hadn't ensured they were robust enough to withstand earthquakes.



"People started asking how safe were schools," says Napolitano. "[And they found] there was no way to check information about who built a school, or if your child is safe."



To prove the point, Napoliano's group and like-minded NGOs sent out 300 requests to national and municipal governments for an array of public health and safety data.



Seventy-three percent of requests were ignored. Only 12 percent got a "satisfactory" answer.



Maurizio Napolitano, a technologist at the Bruno Kessler Foundation (and no relation to Antonella Napolitano) says that one of the reasons Italian authorities don't release data is because they do not feel they have to.







"The problem is the ownership of the data," Maurizio Napolitano explains.



Maurizio Napolitano worries that government ministries are hoarding data - data that should be open to the public.



But he's hopeful the new law can lead to a change in mindset.



"It's better for each organization to change the process inside to open the data," he says. "If you change the processes inside the organizations, you can obtain true, open data."



France, Germany, and Austria: ranked bottom



But it's not just Italy. France, Germany and Austria are also ranked low in terms of transparency and data openness.



Open data campaigner #Helen%20Darbishire%20Bio: Helen Darbishire# says most western European countries lack rigid transparency laws.



"It's a rather interesting situation we've got in Europe," said Darbishire at a recent conference in Italy. "There are some countries - the old democracies of western Europe - who at least on paper have relatively weak access to information laws. Austria is at the bottom there - it actually has a provision in its constitution about secrecy. So clearly not only in Italy but in some other countries as well, there's a need to improve the quality of law on paper."







For her part, Antonella Napolitano is hopeful that the election in February of Matteo Renzi, Italy's youngest prime minister, will make the law a reality.



"Prime Minister Renzi [has] mentioned the Freedom of Information Act in several speeches," notes Antonella Napolitano. "So the idea that we need it is out there. And we are waiting for him and the parliament to follow up."



Though a vote on the bill has not been scheduled yet, Napolitano hopes the final draft legislation will be finished in time for the Personal Democracy Forum in Rome at the end of September.



 
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