Scott Edmunds Lightning talk: Experiences of NGO
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Scott Edmunds Lightning talk at "Unlocking the Value of Open Data"conference: "Experiences of NGO" (with thanks to Justice Centre Hong Kong). 9th June 2018 at HKU.
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Scott Edmunds Lightning talk: Experiences of NGO
- 1. Experiences of a NGO • Government responses to access to information requests take a long time • Government does not release information they hold for unclear reasons • Data that the Government ‘regularly maintains’ is limited • Government made odd comments when responding to data requests • Organisations carrying out a public role, such as the Duty Lawyer Service, are not covered by the Code on Access to Information
- 2. https://www.facebook.com/leetszking/videos/1663087000383462/ Want evidence based policy on internment camps? Do we need to lock up S Asians in SSP?
- 3. No actual data on refugee crime
- 4. Sometimes you need to find your own data
- 5. Sometimes you need to find your own data https://accessinfo.hk/
- 6. Inconsistent reasons for not returning data… Reject again based on: “Information relating to incomplete analysis, research or statistics, where disclosure could be misleading or deprive the department or any other person of priority of publication or commercial value.” “in view of the confidentiality of the content, your requested data could not be provided.” Errr, there isn’t any identifiable data. It’s all anonymised. https://accessinfo.hk/en/request/suspicious_transaction_report_hu
- 7. Even LEGCO members get turned down (by fax)
- 8. Data access can cost lots of money… Source from following FOI requests: Companies: https://accessinfo.hk/en/request/request_for_information_on_elect Lands: https://accessinfo.hk/en/request/information_on_costs_charges_and HA: https://accessinfo.hk/en/request/request_for_statistics_on_data_c Companies Registry = $73,000 HKD Lands Dept = $4.15 million HKD Hospital Authority = $250,000 HKD Yearly Revenue Data Access Fees:
- 10. The Quasi-government complex TCM Safety information =
- 11. Gathering our own open data… http://publicdatahk.com/dataset/hong-kong-2011-census-data
- 12. Do we need to lock up all S Asians in SSP? No. Crime rate is low, stable, and 2% arrests are of S Asians (50-60 people) https://accessinfo.hk/en/request/arrestconvictionprosecution_data_2
- 13. Advocacy efforts Submissions of the Hong Kong UPR Coalition: • HKSAR should adopt a Freedom of Information Ordinance that establishes maximum disclosure and minimal exemption requirements, within one year. • HKSAR should adopt an Archives Ordinance, incorporating mandatory public sector compliance and penalties for non- compliance, destruction of records and denial of access, within one year. Signatories include: Keyboard Frontline Open Data Hong Kong PEN Hong Kong The Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong How to fix this? Fill policy vacuum
Editor's Notes
- It takes more than one month to get a response to about 1/3 of the FOI requests we made. One even took more than 3 months (the nationality breakdown as described below). ImmD refused to provide the number of non-refoulement claimants resettled to a third country when justice centre made an FOI request because it’s ‘UNHCR’s work’, but when asked the same in LegCo they immediately provided the number. The Police Joint Financial Intelligence Unit refused to provide the number suspicious activity reports with the tick box ‘human trafficking’ ticked because it was ‘confidential’. However, when Scott asked for the same data, it was refused on the grounds that it may be ‘misleading or deprive it of publication value’. (Scott has complained to the Ombudsman and as far as I know, the Police has replied but I don’t know the details of the follow-up. Piya, you might want to get more information about the complaint from him.) For example, the ImmD does not maintain statistics about the age of non-refoulement claimants at the time of claim determination although whether a claimant is a child is highly important in evaluating a claim Nationality breakdown of non-refoulement claimants- we made a request in 2017 because ImmD once gave LegCo the nationalities of all claimants in 2015. At first, ImmD sent us their webpage, where only the top 10 nationalities are listed, even though we specifically asked for those not listed on that webpage. After one follow up email, they sent us the regions (the categorisation is again very odd- Southeast and South Asia, Africa, Middle East & North Africa, other parts of Asia, America, Europe & Central Asia). Then, after another follow-up email, they finally sent us the nationality breakdown of all claimants. When asked whether any non-refoulement claims have been made on human trafficking grounds, ImmD replied that claimants should not ‘cherrypick’ grounds and, in any event, they do not maintain the data.
- Universal Periodic Review