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Why obliging self-identification is wrong for freedom of information

Document Citado por Related
Vincent
AutorGregory Michener
Páginas60-63

Page 60

See note 27

Let’s assume you are a citizen of a Latin American country that has recently enacted a freedom of information (FOI) law. This is a likely situation; all but three Latin American countries have implemented some type of FOI measure over the last decade (with the exception of Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Paraguay). If your law is any good (which most are), it should empower you with the right to ask and receive information from government on most everything, barring certain standard exceptions. If it’s a good law, it also obliges your government to put certain important types of information online. If you happen to be in Brazil, like me, you can ask for your information in machine-readable open formats. According to the Center for Law and Democracy’s Right-to-Information Rating, Brazil’s law is among the ifteen most rigorous in the world.

Endangerment and discrimination

Let’s also assume that you, citizen, know about serious corruption going on inside your city government and you want to do something about it. The problem is that whatever information you ask for using the law – the sort of information that may prompt an investigation by higher authorities, for example – you must provide your name and social security number (CPF) to the (dangerous) local authorities. This information can cost you your personal safety or that of your family. What do you do? You probably do not make the request in the irst place.

Page 61

The need to provide a veridical name and identity number is required by only ive of Latin America’s 14 freedom of information measures: those of Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru. Of these laws, only two appear to be actually operating with minimal functionality – those of Brazil and Peru. Given the challenges of making FOI laws work in the irst place, why impose obstacles such as the necessity to self-identify?

Let’s assume a milder hypothetical situation. The water your building receives from the city is dirty. You ile a FOI request with the local water authorities and the relevant regulator. The information oficers in these agencies receive your request and Google your name – out of innocent or calculated curiosity. Based on your Facebook proile and the fact that there is nothing else about you on the internet, they guess you are a ‘nobody,’ and answer with only basic, incomplete information that requires little effort on their part. Now let’s assume you’re a journalist from a powerful news...

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