"FROM antiquity to modern times, the nation has always been a product of information management. The ability to impose taxes, promulgate laws, count citizens and raise an army lies at the heart of statehood. Yet something new is afoot. These days democratic openness means more than that citizens can vote at regular intervals in free and fair elections. They also expect to have access to government data.
The state has long been the biggest generator, collector and user of data. It keeps records on every birth, marriage and death, compiles figures on all aspects of the economy and keeps statistics on licences, laws and the weather. Yet until recently all these data have been locked tight. Even when publicly accessible they were hard to find, and aggregating lots of printed information is notoriously difficult."
Read more, at The Economist.
As discussed on Legal Research Plus, governments are now becoming more open and information transparent.
The above articles discuss how this has had an impact on state, national, and international governments.
