Info 442 chapter 2

INFO 442: INFORMATION
POLICY AND INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
Senait.s
(Bsc,Msc)
04/12/14 1

Chapter Two: National and
international information policy
• National and International information policy
• Requirements of the national or international information
policy
• Information policy areas
• Information policy needs
• Policy issues

National and International information policy
• National and International information policy is most important in the
new era of information society.
• It is information that is the most important factor of production and
wealth creation.
• How well an individual, an organization, a nation (s) and an entire
society can harness, access, share, and make use of available
information will ultimately decide their ability to generate economic
growth and to enhance the quality of life for all.
• Several countries Eg, Asian and Pacific countries like Korea,
Australia, New Zealand, India and Thailand have already undertaken
the transformation to develop a national information policy needed to
take full advantage of the opportunities that are on offer.

National and International…(cont)
• But in Africa, many countries are still struggling to develop their own
national information policy.
• Behind it all the information policy will depend on the ability to
integrate and apply such technologies as computer, telephone,
television, electronic mail, online retrieval, and other multimedia;
known as information and communication technology ICT.
Requirements of the national or international information policy
• It requires that there is a need for proper coordination of initiatives
and the avoidance of duplication.
• IP, since it cuts across so many different departmental responsibilities.

• However, the job cannot be left to the market alone, because the
market will be unable to guarantee that its investment in information
for citizens will meet all of society's needs.
• We are dealing with changes that pass through our entire economic,
social, cultural and political systems.
• The interrelationships between the different systems are such that
there is much to be gained from coordinated development and much
to be lost from fragmentation.

• IP, Eg, has a bearing on:
• i. industrial and commercial competitiveness;
• ii. employment and the creation of high value added job
opportunities;
• iii. lifelong learning and the effectiveness of the education and
training system;
• iv. social inclusion and access to services and opportunities;
• v. healthy living and the effectiveness of the National Health
Service;
• vi. the efficiency and effectiveness of public services;

• vii. participation in the democratic process;
• viii. regional development;
• ix. cultural identity and diversity;
• x. intellectual rights
• To harness the full potential of ICT investment for a nation, ICT must
be treated as an invaluable tool for government to use in support of
various major national and international policies and development
programs.
• In sum, ICT can play a pivotal role in particular to support many of
the government's policies:

National and International…(cont)– for better distribution of wealth and opportunity to rural
inhabitants;
– for equal opportunity to personal and corporate development,
healthcare and other public services;
– for conservation of the nation (s) natural resources and
environment; in addition to that of making the country a regional
hub for finance, manufacturing and trade, transportation and
tourism.
• ICT not only make what we can do today much more easily, quickly,
and efficiently.
• ICT can also make possible new ways of working, learning,
communicating, and solving problems.

National and International…(cont)• ICT empowers human ability to reason and gain wisdom, to bridge
distances and to interact, communicate and work.
Generally, ICT can improve the quality of life.
In short, ICT empowers us to succeed as a part of the global community
in the 21st century.
Concerned areas for national or international information policy
• Three main areas include:
– connectivity,
– content and
– competencies.

National and International…(cont)Connectivity
• Connectivity incorporates ideally three areas which are information
networks, access and interoperability.
• For creating the information networks a policy should set out a
strategic approach to the development of the nation's information
networks.
• It should provide a framework within which public and private
investment can be planned.
• It should specify the preferred approach in the regulation to ensure
that the networks operate efficiently and for the public good.

• The provision of universal access requires that networks are available
as widely as possible in institutions and homes.
• The policy should specify a strategy to ensure access for key
organisations and individuals such as schools, libraries, and those in
isolated rural areas.
• Pricing strategies should not exclude people from network access.
• To ensure interoperability one has to focus on the different devices
making up the ICT.
• Given the rapidly changing technological environment, there will be a
variety of technologies, networks and platforms that can be used to
deliver information, including computers, telephones and digital
television.

• The policy should include provision to ensure that there are no
barriers to the citizen from lack of inter connectivity between the
networks.
Content
• Content include the creation of core content, ensuring delivery of the
same, protection of the citizen, and provision of free access to core
information.
• In creating core content for the public good a considerable amount of
public information will be needed in an information society.
• Much of this will require to be provided by public sector institutions
working, where necessary, in collaboration with the private sector.

National and International…(cont)• The policy should, therefore, set out a strategy that will ensure that
public support is available for the development of needed information
content.
• To ensure effective delivery of content the creation of digital content
alone will not be sufficient.
• Effective delivery over the networks requires the development of
appropriate information retrieval aids and navigation tools.
• Government departments and agencies must look for innovative ways
of presenting information to citizens, cutting across institutional
boundaries.

• Training and awareness programmes will be required to ensure target
markets are reached efficiently.
• The policy should indicate how these issues are to be addressed. E.g.
Ethical issues like protecting the citizen require regulatory
mechanisms.
• The information policy should address a range of:
– legal and regulatory issues including:
• privacy and data protection,
• intellectual property rights,
• censorship or fraudulent use of the networks and
• legal deposit of intellectual property.

National and International…(cont)• The rapid development of e-commerce will generate further
requirements for regulation in the consumer interest.
• To have free access to core information a policy will need to cover
rights of access to information.
• Individuals already have rights in some countries to access personal
information about themselves and there are some rights of access to
local government information.
• However more work will be needed on securing and safeguarding
access free at the point of use to citizenship information that is already
in the public domain.

Competencies
• Competencies consist of the development of universal information
literacy, the supply of information specialists, and the creation of
information strategies for organizations.
• To develop universal information literacy effort is required to develop
a base level of information literacy for everyone.
• It should encompass a wide range of skills, including numeracy,
literacy, computer and information retrieval skills.
• It must be delivered at a variety of levels throughout the formal and
informal education processes, and it should take advantage of the full
range of delivery methods now available, including digital networks.

• The National and international Information Policy must address the
need to ensure that there is an adequate supply of appropriately skilled
information specialists to maximize the value of information for
individual users and organizations through processes of collection,
organization and dissemination.
• Information skills handling should be explicitly identified in any
national and international initiatives designed to improve management
and human resources skills.

• for a metadata attribute set based on the US metadata.
• In addition Australia ventured into the communications and computer
technologies making recommendations for the implications for
Australia's future employment and skills.
• Other areas like technology and the enterprise, education and training
provision, Commonwealth cultural policy etc. all became part of the
information policy in the 1990s.
• For Australia the role and responsibilities of the future lay in the
National Information Policy.
• In Japan government information administered by the Ministry of
Posts and Telecommunications was first observed on the Internet in
the 1990s.

• Shortly after various Ministries administered their part of a National
Information Policy on the Internet and many issues to be incorporated
in a single policy or a set of information policies can be viewed today.
• The general conclusion of the many reports on information policies in
this region is that agencies can immediately enhance both visibility of
and access to government information by making descriptions of
resources and documents available on the Internet, directly as Web
documents or as records in an agency.
• However, in order to provide effective, efficient and long term access
to the whole of government information, hence further research
should be carried out and the findings should then be presented to the
Government for endorsement and promulgation.

The need for developing a national or an
international information policy.
• The transition to information societies and knowledge driven
economies is a global phenomenon.
• Many of the western countries, USA and Asia and Pacific have
created policies to speed the process of transition and some more
countries in Asia and Africa, are in the process of doing so.
• If other countries are to maintain their competitive position they must
not lag further behind.
• There are many reasons for thinking of this as a decisive moment in
the development of the information society.

need…(cont)
• Many of the government's initiatives have a significant information
element.
• Failure to get the information right will reduce the impact of
individual initiatives.
• There is much to be gained from a coordinated approach to
information across the board.
• A national or international information policy framework will
contribute to:
• i.Modernizing government: the agenda for a modern government
requires that information flows are managed as effectively as possible
within government and between governments and citizens and
businesses.

need…(cont)
• ii.Building a knowledge driven economy: the planned
transformation of industry and commerce will lace a premium on the
effective use of information and knowledge.
• iii.A better environment for e-commerce: better co-ordination is
needed between government and industry to gain maximum benefit
from existing and proposed programs.
• Ambitious targets for electronic transactions with Government will
depend on co-ordination across Departments and Agencies.

need…(cont)
• iv. Improving educational effectiveness: curriculum developments
such as teaching thinking skills will depend for their effectiveness on
children and young people having access to the information they will
need to support their learning; lifelong learners will need co-ordinated
guidance on all the opportunities open to them.
• v. Avoiding social exclusion: many current information
developments could exacerbate social exclusion, further isolating the
information have-nots from the rest of society.
• We need policies to ensure that no one is excluded from the benefits
of an inclusive information society.
• vi. Strengthening our cultural identity: technological development
offers opportunities to articulate and promote minority cultures.
• At the same time, the global nature of the cultural communication
system puts national cultures under threat.

To follow up procedures on National or International Information
Policy the subsequent series of actions can be formulated:
National and International Policy on Information
Design on a plan of action for the development and operation of
information services and systems fully integrated in the country's
national development plan
Launching of information programmes coordinated and integrated in the
plan of action
Implementation of information projects at the most appropriate place and
date
Optimum operation of information services and systems
A national policy on information, whether it is a single policy or a set of
policies, usually covers the main issues shown above in the field of

• According to Susanne Ornager (UNESCO Regional office for
Information and Informatics in Asia and the Pacific) in her paper
titled:
• ‘National Information Policy - Differing approaches’
• Stated that the challenge to governments of every nation, is:
– the re thinking of their role,
– their laws,
– their rules,
– their regulations, and
– their national policies in the Cyberspace era,

• so that they maximize the driving forces propelling them to
exploiting the fullest potential and positive benefits of the
Information Society, while at the same time minimizing the
negative, constraining forces that are acting as barriers to
frustrate this exploitation.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL
INFORMATION POLICY ISSUES
• Although many of theses issues are international, they must also be
dealt with as national issues. They include:
– Socio-cultural issues;
– Political Issues;
– National Security Issues;
– Personal issues;
– Economic Issues;
– Nationalistic Issues;
– Copyright or Intellectual property Rights;
– Educational ;
– Legislation;
– Electronic Environment; and
– Technological Issues.

Technological and Socio-cultural issues
• Technological Issues
• Technological issues involve those related to the hardware itself or to
issues brought about by the hardware.
• Eg, international negotiations about geostationary "parking orbits" for
communications satellites or the allocation of spectrum frequencies
related directly to the hardware.
• The development of international standards to use the technologies
raises important related issues such as whether some standards favor
certain nations or restrict competition.

• Technology has made it much easier to gather and disseminate
information, but it has also created new problems in protecting
privacy and proprietary or national defense information.
• Because television signals and data are easily beamed via satellite,
methods are also needed to protect these signals from piracy and to
encrypt data.
• Eg, in the United States, billions of dollars are being spent to develop
encryption techniques and protect data and to develop the
technologies needed both to disseminate and to protect information.

• Socio-cultural issues
• Technologies transform fundamental values, assumptions and
activities within society.
• The introduction of such technologies that are not consistent with
these values and assumptions may create social and cultural
dislocations that are unanticipated and undesired.
• Could the introduction of information technologies increase the
capacity of government leaders to control their population?
• Could such technologies change the economic basis of a society from
rural to urban?

• Could devoting fiscal and Lunar resources to building a technological
infrastructure divert needed resources from other vital activities such
as agriculture or education?
• The information of new technologies from one country to another can
also raise serious concerns about undue cultural influence or
dominance.
• There is a fear that such technologies can influence populations
through the messages that are received.
• Thus a developing nation Eg, may fear the influence and effect of
technologies imported from a western nation, especially in terms of
the developing nation's own culture and traditional values.
• In many countries, information products and services have been
strongly nationally oriented; the diversity of languages, alphabets,
classification schemes and approaches to organizing information are
usually considered assets.

National Security Issues
• An important area in which the government wants to restrict
information as a matter of policy is information that could threaten the
security of the Nation.
• This will involve the security agents that would require strict
government publication for strict security information circulation.
• Related to this issue are the problems of encryption for secure
networking including the availability of encryption and decryption
programs and the setting of related standards?

• Some data must be protected to insure privacy, protect proprietary
interests, or safeguard national security.
• Determining what should be protected, from whom, and how are
important issues to be resolved in the years ahead.
• This overview highlights some of the major information policy issues
confronting us in the future.
Eg, the transmission and Control of information across National
boundaries
• The ability to disseminate information globally has raised some
important question.

• In a world in which satellite can instantaneously transmit information,
in which substantial electronic computer storage is both practical and
economical, and in which this information can be transmitted and
retrieved by micro computers in homes around the world, the
globalization of information raises deep issues about the impact of the
spread and control of such information.
• The international exchange of information is sometimes referred to as
trans border data flow (TDF) and concerns itself primarily with the
flow of digital information across borders for storage or processing in
foreign computers.

• There are a variety of personal, economic, national, and socio -
cultural issues to be dealt with.
• Personal issues
• Because individual records through out the world are stored on
computer systems, it has become common to transmit this information
to various organizations both private and governmental.
• Attempts in Europe Eg, has been made to control the unnecessary
transmission of personal information across national borders so that
individual rights are protected at the same time that necessary
information can be transmitted.

• Economic Issues
• All information policy issues have economic implications because of
the value of information and because of the importance of information
management and technology for increases in productivity and in
improving the quality of life.
• The information industry is worth billions of dollars, and nations
naturally compete to dominate this market.
• This leads to international issues such as tariff and trade regulations
that restrict or encourage the flow of information and information
technologies.

• Similarly, different countries may impose special standard on
equipment or insist on a pricing structure inconsistent with the
producer of considerable interest is placing tariffs on the information
itself, not just on the equipment or information products used to
transmit it.
• The higher the proportion of a country's information that is stored and
managed outside its borders, the greater the loss to the country of jobs
and revenue generated from the information-related activities.
• The economic dimensions are significant and raise a number of issues
such as those concerning the need to protect intellectual property,
whether trade restrictions are needed, and determining the appropriate
roles of the government and the private sector (both for-profit and
National Information Policy not-for-profit) in the life cycle of
information.

• Nationalistic Issues
• The concern over national issues related to TDF has governed over
the years.
• Among those is the fear of a foreign national dominating the
information resources of one's country, usually the United States, but
it could also simply other countries and multinational corporations.
• There is always a temptation on the part of a country to jump ahead
by importing technologies, software, and information from, another
country.
• This usually means adopting the hardware, software, language, and
cultural of the country that provides these means.

• Similarly, the importing of information technologies may inhibit a
country's ability to create its own infrastructure to produce its own
technologies.
• As nations become increasingly dependent on the technologies of
another nation this may be deceived as a potential threat to its
sovereignty.
• Similarly, countries may define public and private information
differently on information readily and legally available in another.
• Given the ease by which electronic information can be transmitted
this can generate much national concern.

• Another issue is the protection of national security information
from electronic intrusion by another country.
• Electronic storage of highly sensitive government information
is now common in many countries and the fear that the
information may be accessed and transmitted across
international borders is a common and important
consideration.

• Information policy issues in the Electronic Environment
• Freedom of speech is one of the primary issue accorded to each
citizen.
• This freedom protects not only the right to express oneself, but also to
receive information.
• The internet can certainly be perceived as a new and vital form to
express and hear the opinions of others.
• In addition, the internet has been characterized by some as the last
area where a "frontier" spirit reigns.
• It is a highly individualistic and attractive channel of communication;
people have felt free to express themselves on any subject in any
manner they see & fit.

• Clearly, there is a strong interest in assuring the rights of free speech
on the interest.
• This implies not only that the content of what people say be protected,
but also that the system permit free and open access to the network so
people are able to express themselves and that the system be designed
so that effective two - way communication is available.
• In addition the increasing privatization there will be "public spaces"
where people can express themselves freely on the issues of the day.
• At the same times, some serious questions have been raised regarding
uncontrolled speech on the internet and the appropriateness of some
of the subjects discussed.

• Internet communication involves many different activities including
sending and receiving e-mails messages, transmitting and
downloading files, participating in electronic discussion, groups and
commercial activities involving the purchase and sale of goods and
services.
• These activities take place in the privacy of one's own home or in the
work setting.
• Many internet users are under the impression that their identities are
confidential; in reality, they can usually be discovered easily.
• To what extend are our communications protected and private? Who
can read our electronic messages, and under what circumstances?

• Traditionally, intellectual property has been protected by copyright
laws (as well as patent and trade mark law).
• The properties being protected were physical representations.
• Today with electronic access the producers of information tend to
retain control of the information (the intellectual property).
• Traditionally, the creator of the information sold a physical item
(book or periodical), which under the doctrine of the Right of first
sale could then be loaned as many times as the item would remain in
the system and being used.

• But online access is regulated as much as more licensing and leasing
agreements are copyrighted.
• It is not uncommon for such agreements to be negotiated before these
services are provided.
• The agreements set forth the conditions under which the library may
disseminate the information and provide a very different context for
the dissemination of information from the past.
• Because these agreements are mutually agreed upon, they are
governed by contract laws, a fundamentally different set of laws.

• Most notably, where the intent of copyright law had the primary
objective to advance developments in the arts and sciences, the basis
of contract law has no such idealistic motive.
• Rather contract law is written to benefit the parties who enter into the
contract; benefits to the society at large are entirely incidental.
• For producers and distributors of the information there is no need to
consider the social issues at all; is merely the economic ones.

• Political Issues
• All of the issues discussed earlier, of course, have political aspects.
• In addition, other major political issues relate to:
– equity of access, especially by developing nations to information;
– dissemination and propaganda as tools of national policy; and
– to national security functions.
• Equity of access is one of the most significant issues facing us today.

• One futurist has predicted a recolonization of the world based on
access to information; information-poor nations will be linked with
and increasingly dependent on information-rich nations.
• The concern is also that those who can find and use information
effectively will have great power over those who cannot. This will
lead to further inequities in society.
• The potential of information and communications technology to
create a global communications network is being realized but with the
network comes awareness of a conflict between the information
ideologies of the developed nations (often conflicting ideologies) and
those of the developing nations.

• Many developed nations advocate the unrestricted broadcast of most
information across national boundaries along with the unrestricted
access of a private press to all parts of the world with uncensored
reporting of whatever the private press wants to report.
• Recently we have seen some questioning of these principles by the
governments of some developed nations.
• Most developing nations also appreciate the value of information
technology yet may wish to maintain some control to avoid an
inundation of broadcasting over which they have no control.

• In part this concern derives from a feeling that reporting is
biased and may reflect "developed-nation imperialism."
• The debate between the need for a "New World Information
and Communications Order" and the need for a firm stand
against control of the press is likely to continue in the near
future.

Policy Issues
• Impacts of the Net on individuals, families, communities
• Balancing the rights, obligations and responsibilities of
information creators, providers, intermediaries and users
• The preservation of information
• The responsibility for maintaining information archives
• Determining rights of access to information
• Extent of control of personal information
• Determining conditions under which these rights can be
abridged

…continued
• Why do nations need a National Information Policy?
• Nations are dealing with changes that infuse their entire
economic, social, cultural and political systems.
• The inter-relationships between the different systems are such
that there is much to be gained from coordinated development
and much to be lost from fragmentation.

…continued
• Some of the reasons:
– industrial and commercial competitiveness;
– employment and the creation of high value-added job
opportunities;
– lifelong learning and the effectiveness of the education and
training system;
– social inclusion and access to services and opportunities;

…continued
– healthy living and the effectiveness of health service;
– the efficiency and effectiveness of public services;
– participation in the democratic process;
– regional development;
– cultural identity and diversity;
– intellectual rights.

…continued
• Elements to be considered when formulating information
policy:
– The right to communicate
– Legal and regulatory frameworks
– Freedom of expression and information exchange
– Diversity of content, ownership and control
– The licensing and control of intellectual property
– Privacy
– Global, regional and national governance of ICT
infrastructure
– Rights awareness and realization of rights

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Editor's Notes