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They have this right wherever financially feasible and, when releasing, it won’ t violate any laws or rights relating to privacy either for citizens or government staff( LinkedGov 2011)( Open _ Knowledge _ Foundation 2011)( Sweeney 2009).
3.1 Values
Transparency and trust are central values that drive OD. Openness is viewed as a necessary condition for a well‐functioning democratic state of law. It serves the legitimacy of Public Administration and the trust of civilians in the government( ROB 2012). The scientific community is also calling for more openness with its own research data. We have observed that in the Netherlands, trust in scientific research is an object of discussion. Regularly, messages that mention cases of questionable research practices appear in the media. A growing distrust against science seems to appear, a distrust which is fed by a series of incidents fully described in the media( Schuyt 2012). Several cases of fraud have been discovered in recent years( Heilbron 2005). The proposed measures point to more openness and transparency. Besides good data management, peer pressure, archiving and sharing is advocated. These elements support the replication of research. As a consequence the chances of fraud decrease, while the chances of discovering fraud increase( Schuyt 2012). Therefore we argue that openness contributes to transparency and via transparency, it contributes to trust of civilians and other stakeholders, amongst the government and in science( Zuiderwijk et al. 2012)( Kulk et al. 2012)( ROB 2012)( Schuyt 2012)( Rajamäki et al. 2012).
The IS evaluation framework based on PV of Grimsley and Meehan( 2007) focuses upon citizens’ and clients’ experiences of service provision and service outcomes as contributors to the formation of public trust. They show that trust is related to the extent to which people feel that an e‐Government service enhances their sense of being well informed, gives them greater personal control and provides them with a sense of influence or contingency( Grimsley and Meehan 2007). In the context of law enforcement Rajamäki et al. note that people feel they have lost control over their own data and they do not know who handles personal data, when and for what purpose. This concern can be answered by increasing transparency of these operations( Rajamäki et al. 2012). The principle of transparency is that information should be shared while data is collected. Possibilities for control must be created and people assured that there is no abuse( Rajamäki et al. 2012). As will be argued in section 3c, constraints imposed on the access to data therefore are important for trust: in deciding how far one party needs to trust the other and vice versa. Transparency is also important for trust as by transparency the unilateral restraints imposed can be verified by the stakeholders.
As described above, OD refers to data that does not reveal personal identity. We argue that privacy is thus another central PV in OD. By means of the Data Protection Directive the European Union requires that if personal data is processed, this should be done fairly, lawfully and for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes( Article 6 of the Data Protection Directive). The purposes for which the data is processed must be explicit and legitimate and must be determined at the time of collection of the data( Recital 28 of the Data Protection Directive)( Kulk et. al. 2012). In the Netherlands important principles of justice are anchored in the Dutch Privacy Protection Act( DPPA), such as finality, legitimacy, proportionality and subsidiarity, transparency and data subject’ s rights. Finality refers to the purpose for which personal data is collected. This purpose should be explicit and the processing of collected data must be compatible with the purpose for which they were collected. Legitimacy refers to the process of data collection and also to the context of the data: data must be processed in a proper, careful, and legal manner. Moreover data must be relevant, sufficient, not excessive, and correct( Versmissen 2001). Proportionality demands that the means used are proportional to the intended purpose. Subsidiarity demands the use of the alternative which minimizes the use of privacy sensitive data. Transparency refers to the right that the data subject is entitled to know if someone is processing data about him. The data processing party has the obligation to identify itself to the data subject and has to inform him about what data it processes and the purposes of processing( Versmissen 2001).
The fourth and final OD value we discern in this paper is security. Security is a comprehensive notion. However, we derive this value from the privacy value. To prevent accidental or malicious disclosure, modification, or destruction of records and data sets, data security is indispensable( Denning and Denning 1979). Research and registration databases may contain privacy sensitive data. The opening of this data therefore should be done in strict compliance with the privacy value to prevent privacy breaches. In other words the security of the data has to be protected. In section b below, we will go into more detail on this value.
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