Australian Government Information Interoperability Framework (pdf

definitions. Alternatively, information users may not understand the purpose orcontext in which the information was collected, or the information provided maybe incomplete.• Agencies may need to restrict access to certain information in order to fulfil legalrequirements around privacy, confidentiality or intellectual property which maylimit the sharing of complete information. An incomplete understanding of legalobligations can result in agencies avoiding making their information holdings visibleand accessible.• Agencies may have an imperative to charge for access to their data holdings and ifsystems have not been designed to provide easy and flexible access, the cost can beprohibitive.• Cultural and ownership issues may lead to limited information sharing betweenagencies. This may occur as a result of an unwillingness to invest in a cross-agencyproject that does not appear to address direct agency priorities, that appears tobenefit one agency over another, that reduces control or autonomy of an agency, thatincreases an agency’s costs, or simply because of lack of trust at the infrastructureand interpersonal levels.• Technological infrastructure, such as boundary protection devices (ie firewalls) andsecurity measures may also present a barrier to the effective sharing of informationbetween agencies.• Government may have a limited understanding of the value of information thatagencies hold and the future efficiencies that can be obtained by harnessing thisinformation. Existing data collections are often underused and agencies maycommence new specific information collection activities without knowing aboutrelevant holdings.T H R E E W H A T I S I N F O R M A T I O N ?The next section sets out a range of practices and supporting mechanisms (the enablers)that build on the information lifecycle and information management principles andaddress the barriers that currently prevent effective information sharing.Information Interoperability Framework Sharing information across boundaries21