http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article19677.ece
RTI activists fear move to dilute open e-governance
Deepa Kurup
A move by the Centre to bring in an intellectual property rights-based
regime in e-governance services comes under fire.
A move by the Department of Information Technology to bring in an
intellectual property rights-based regime in e-governance services is
being opposed by activists who fear the shift will dilute the Right to
Information Act.
Right to information (RTI) activists, under the aegis of the National
Campaign for People’s Rights to Information (NCPRI), have written to the
DIT opposing demands made by industry bodies to allow adoption of
multiple and royalty-based technological standards, which will determine
access and affordability of future public e-services.
The National Policy on Open Standards for e-governance, being finalised
by the DIT, has been stirring heated debate since its second draft
version was released in July. In the context of implementing RTI Act
(2005), the NCPRI working committee members Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey,
Shekhar Singh, Maja Daruwalla and Venkatesh Nayak, had written that open
and free standards are “key to realising the letter and intent of the
RTI Act”.
The NCPRI has opposed this demand terming it an “attempt to subvert the
intent of the policy.” Appreciating the “progressive” line taken by the
original draft policy made public in 2008, the letter states that any
move to dilute the open and free nature of these standards, would be
antithetical to the spirit of the RTI Act. According to the Act,
citizens can have “free and unhindered access to government information
and data systems.”
The “industry demand” will only deny long-term accessibility to public
documents and information, the letter argues. This will only benefit the
licence/patent holders and also create (or retain) monopolies for
software products, the NCPRI maintains.
The RTI Act includes, in Section 2(i), the right to access information
held in digital form. It also mandates (in Section 4(1)(a) that all
records be “computerised within a reasonable time... and connected
through a network all over the country on different systems.”
Mr. Nayak told The Hindu that this would impact “pro-active disclosure
and free access” both of which lay at the core of the Act. “Today, the
Internet is a major vehicle of dissemination of information. Now, if the
software used by the government is proprietary then it is likely that
access to these services will later migrate to a pay-and-use model. Why
should a perfectly good policy be restricted and hindered to cater to
the obvious financial interests of corporations?”
Multiple standards
The NCPRI states that multiple standards defeat the objective of
providing a common basis for every user. It will also force the citizens
to buy software products from different companies to access government
data or interact with public service providers. Further, the letter
argues, that royalty-based standards are against the RTI Act, which
stipulates that information be made available at no cost other than that
of photocopying.
In the context of obtaining public information through the Act, multiple
and royalty-free standards could be problematic on two counts. The
citizen would have to use multiple pieces of software to access
government data. Incorporating royalty-based standards would involve
costs that might have to be borne by the data user (in this case the RTI
applicant).
--
Vinay Sreenivasa
IT for Change
91-98805-95032
[email protected]
http://itforchange.net
http://public-software.in
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