Open data are held to contribute to a wide variety of social and political goals, including strengthening transparency, public participation and democratic accountability, promoting economic growth and innovation, and enabling greater public sector efficiency and cost savings. However, releasing government data that contain personal information may threaten privacy and related rights and interests. In this Article we ask how these privacy interests can be respected, without unduly hampering benefits from disclosing public sector information. We propose a balancing framework to help public authorities address this question in different contexts. The framework takes into account different levels of privacy risks for different types of data. It also separates decisions about access and re-use, and highlights a range of different disclosure routes. A circumstance catalogue lists factors that might be considered when assessing whether, under which conditions, and how a dataset can be released. While open data remains an important route for the publication of government information, we conclude that it is not the only route, and there must be clear and robust public interest arguments in order to justify the disclosure of personal information as open data.
Details
Title
Open Data, Privacy, and Fair Information Principles: Towards a Balancing Framework
Author
Borgesius, Frederik Zuiderveen (Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam Law School) Gray, Jonathan (Digital Methods Initiative, University of Amsterdam) van Eechoud, Mireille (Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam Law School)
Note
We thank Simon Hania, Dariusz Kloza, Stefan Kulk, Maja Lubarda, Richard Rogers, Javier Ruiz, Nico van Eijk, Ben Worthy, and Bendert Zevenbergen for participating in the Workshop Reconciling Fair Information Principles and Open Data Policies on February 6, 2015 at the Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam. We also thank the participants of the symposium Open Data: Addressing Privacy, Security, and Civil Rights Challenges, April 17, 2015, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, in particular Cathy O'Neil and David Flaherty. The thought-provoking discussions during both events helped to shape our ideas for this Article. Furthermore, Matthijs Koot, Bendert Zevenbergen, and the editors of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal deserve our gratitude for comments on earlier versions of this Article. We also express our gratitude to the members of the advisory board for the project that led to this Article: Simon Hania, Corporate Privacy Officer at the TomTom company; Dr. Jaap-Henk Hoepman, Associate Professor of Privacy Enhancing Protocols and Privacy by Design, University of Nijmegen; Dr. Aleecia McDonald, non-residential fellow, Center for Internet & Society, Stanford University; Prof. B. Roessler, Professor of Ethics and its History, University of Amsterdam; Javier Ruiz Diaz, Policy Director, Open Rights Group; Prof. N.A.N.M. van Eijk, Professor of Media and Telecommunications Law, University of Amsterdam; Dr. Ben Worthy, lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck University of London, independent reporter for the U.K.'s IRM of the Open Government Partnership (U.K.). We thank Sarah Eskens, Rachel Wouda, and Dirk Henderickx for research assistance. All errors are the authors' own. Financial support for this project came from the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Microsoft.