Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
In the networked public sphere — mediated by the network, as opposite to the
public sphere mediated by the mass communication media —, the concept of
transparency is impacted by the possibilities of information and communication
technologies. Due to the space in which such possibilities manifest being
digital, and the Internet being its main proliferation environment, the concept
of transparency is associated to the forms of making information available in the web.
As foreseen by the transparency and open government guidelines 1 in force in the
USA since 2009, some factors on the way the public information is made available in
the network have a direct relationship with the capacity of use and reutilization the
citizens will have of such information. The integrity of the data, as well as its actuality
and the possibility of accessing them without depending on any specific technologic
platform are some of these factors, which are much related to the transparency issue.
Therefore, the concept of open governmental data is associated to the understanding
of transparency, in this article, which is being established by various discussions,
documents and experiences of use as a way of making available public
information in the network in favor of the opening, of the collaboration and participation
of the citizens.
Herein, the expressions “open governmental data” or “open data” are used.
A reference frequently quoted for the definition of open governmental data was
launched in the network in the year of 2007, having been conceived on December
7 th and 8 th . It is the result of the work of 30 government advocates — Invited by Tim
O’Reilly, owner of O’Reilly Media, and Carl Malahmud, of the movement in defense
of knowledge in public domain Public.Resource.Org — among them are the then
law professor in Stanford and founder of the Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig,
representatives of the Sunlight Foundation, in addition to various networks entrepreneurs
who already worked with forms of social mobilization, urban intervention
and political action in the Internet.
The meeting in Sebastopol, California, had the purpose of “developing a more
robust understanding of the reason for the open governmental data being essential for
democracy” 2 . According to the report, “the Internet is the public space of the modern
1. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-06.pdf. Accessed in
Feb/2010.
2. The complete documentation of this experience is available at the website http://resource.org/
8_principles.html. Accessed in Feb/2010.
116