Freedom of information

• 1. Introduction

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  Freedom of information is the freedom of people to publish information and to have access to it. In 2024 the internet reached just over 5.35 billion users, about 66 per cent of the world's population. That number sounds like a triumph for open knowledge. Yet being connected settles very little. A person can be online and still be shut out by price, by language, by disability, by a filter or by a platform's rules. The same networks that carry information also let states and companies monitor, block and track. This documentary asks who gets left out of the flow of information, and why. It asks who decides what may be said or read online. It asks what happens when the right to know collides with the right to privacy. And it asks how governments have tried to turn a principle into laws that actually work.

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• 2. A Right With Many Names

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  In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gave the idea its best-known wording. Article 19 protects the right to "receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers". The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights followed in 1966. Its own Article 19 starts with the right to hold opinions without interference. It then adds the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds.

  The vocabulary is not fully settled. "Access to information", "right to information", "right to know" and "freedom of information" are often treated as synonyms. Each phrase, though, puts a slightly different dimension of the same issue in the foreground.

  Freedom of expression is the closest relative. It can apply to speech, writing, print, electronic media or art. Protecting it therefore covers the means of expression as well as the message. Freedom of information is a separate concept. On the internet it sometimes clashes with the right to privacy, which is itself a recognised human right. The government of the United Kingdom has theorised freedom of information as an extension of freedom of speech and a fundamental human right.

  UNESCO draws the boundaries far wider than a single law on government records. Its description reaches scientific, indigenous and traditional knowledge, open standards, and the preservation of digital heritage. It also takes in cultural and linguistic diversity, lifelong education, media literacy, and affordable mobile and broadband connections. Politics has absorbed the cause too. The international and United States Pirate Party have built their platforms largely around freedom of information issues.

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• 3. The Digital Divide

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  Michael Buckland defines six barriers that must be overcome before access to information becomes real. They are identifying the source, the availability of the source, the price to the user, the cost to the provider, cognitive access and acceptability. Many of them show up in what is called the digital divide.

  A digital divide is an economic and social inequality in access to, use of, or impact of information and communication technologies. Inside a country it can separate individuals, households, businesses or regions, usually along lines of income or other demographics. Between countries it is called the global digital divide, and it compares developing and developed nations.

  In the United States, race shapes the gap. In one set of figures, 81 per cent of whites and 83 per cent of Asians have home internet access. For Hispanics the figure is 70 per cent, and for Blacks it is 68 per cent. American Indian and Alaska Natives stand at 72 per cent, and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders at 68 per cent. Income does not explain it all. Among low-income groups, 58 per cent of whites have home access, compared with 51 per cent of Hispanics and 50 per cent of Blacks.

  A report titled "Digital Denied: The Impact of Systemic Racial Discrimination on Home-Internet Adoption" tackled the question. A public interest group based in DC published it. The report blames structural barriers and discrimination. It also finds that people without internet still want it badly, and that lower prices would raise adoption among marginalized groups.

  Online rules can deepen the gap. A ProPublica project gathered internal Facebook documents on how hate speech was defined. One slide named three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. The correct answer to the question of which group was protected was white men. Observers argue that such rules and algorithms favor white men and elites. They also note that automated hate detection handles minority group language badly, because human bias decides what counts as hate.

  Enforcement looks uneven as well. Aboriginal memes on a Facebook page drew racially abusive comments that depicted Aboriginal people as inferior. After an investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the page's originators removed the material. Facebook still kept the page up, classified as controversial humor. Meanwhile an African American woman posted about her discomfort at being the only person of color in a small-town restaurant. She received racist and hateful messages. When she reported them, Facebook suspended her account for three days for posting screenshots, while the people who wrote the abuse were not suspended.

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• 4. Who Gets Left Behind

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  According to the Pew Internet, 54 per cent of households with a person who has a disability have home internet access. In households without such a person, the figure is 81 per cent. Some barriers are physical, since quadriplegia or a disability in the hands can make screens hard to use. People with cognitive and auditory disabilities also face gaps in technology and home access. A lasting concern is whether growing reliance on information technology will open opportunities or simply leave disabled people further behind. Perceptions of disability, government and corporate policy, mainstream computing design and real-time online communication all shape the answer. In 2014 a UNESCO-convened conference adopted the New Delhi Declaration on Inclusive ICTs for Persons with Disabilities: Making Empowerment a Reality.

  Abuse adds another barrier. A report from Leonard Cheshire.org found that online disability hate crimes had risen by 33 per cent across the UK within the past year. In 2019 the son of model Katie Price became a target of abuse linked to his disability. She launched a campaign urging Britain's MPs to hold abusers accountable. Many disabled people also meet accusations of benefit fraud or of "faking" a disability, which sometimes lead to unnecessary investigations. Such abuse can push people offline, away from information that could improve their lives.

  Women face a gap of their own. According to the Wharton School of Public Policy, the gender gap in access to information and communication technology was 12 per cent globally in 2016. In some developing countries it reached 31 per cent. Illiteracy and weak digital skills widen it, and can leave women unaware of issues such as sexual health. Price matters, because women are generally paid less and face an unequal balance between paid and unpaid work. In some places local community authorities have banned or restricted mobile phone use for girls and unmarried women. Cultural norms can also block education or limit a woman's control over household finances. Even women who do get access still run into the divide.

  For LGBTQIA people the internet cuts both ways. A number of states, including some with laws introduced since 2010, censor voices and information on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2017 YouTube classified non-explicit videos with LGBTQIA themes as restricted, a setting meant to filter potentially inappropriate material. Internet filters in public schools and libraries restrict similar material. Yet online spaces offer isolated or rural people health information, news, partners and contact with others, with the option of anonymity. Gay Health provides online medical information, and the Gay and Lesbians Alliance Against Defamation publishes news on human rights campaigns. Online predators, who seek out personal details and give false information, are a real danger. Poor broadband in remote areas limits all of this, which is why LGBT Tech has urged that 5G help close the gap. Human service professionals can also use the internet, with evidence and evaluation, to guide people through coming out and the repercussions that may follow.

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• 5. Fighting Censorship

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  The World Summit on the Information Society met in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005. One chief aim was to bridge the global divide separating rich countries from poor ones, and the summit set the 17th of May as World Information Society Day. Its 2003 Declaration of Principles called communication "a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organisation". It also stated that "no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers". The declaration acknowledged a need to prevent information resources and technologies from serving criminal and terrorist purposes, while respecting human rights. Wolfgang Benedek commented that it mentions human rights often but sets out no procedure to ensure they are considered in practice.

  Hackers wrote a declaration of their own. Hacktivismo, a digital rights group founded in 1999, argues that access to information is a basic human right. Its Hacktivismo Declaration asks that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ICCPR be applied to the internet. It calls on the hacker community to "study ways and means of circumventing state sponsored censorship of the internet". Yet it accepts limits, recognizing the right of governments to forbid "properly categorized state secrets, child pornography, and matters related to personal privacy and privilege". What it opposes is state power used "to control access to the works of critics, intellectuals, artists, or religious figures".

  Companies and rights groups tried a different route. On the 29th of October 2008 the Global Network Initiative was founded on its Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy, in the 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration. Participants include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Cisco Systems was invited to the first discussions but did not take part. Harrington Investments had proposed that Cisco set up a human rights board, and it dismissed the initiative as a voluntary code of conduct. Its chief executive, John Harrington, called it "meaningless noise" and asked for bylaws that force boards to accept human rights responsibilities.

  Jo Glanville, editor of the Index on Censorship, said the internet "has been a revolution for censorship as much as for free speech". The Reporters without Borders "internet enemy list" named Cuba, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar/Burma, North Korea, Syria, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Vietnam as pervasive censors. The best-known system is the Great Firewall of China, named for both its function and the ancient Great Wall. It blocks content by preventing IP addresses from being routed, using firewall and proxy servers at internet gateways. It also selectively poisons DNS when particular sites are requested. The government does not appear to examine content systematically, since that seems technically impractical. More than sixty regulations govern the system, and provincial branches of state-owned ISPs, companies and organizations enforce them.

  In 2010 the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, declared "we stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas". She also relayed President Barack Obama's view that "the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become".

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• 6. Privacy and Secrets

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  In 2015 the United Nations Human Rights Council created a Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy, through a resolution on privacy in the digital age. In 2017 it warned that unlawful or arbitrary surveillance, interception of communications and collection of personal data are "highly intrusive acts". Such acts violate privacy and can interfere with other rights, including freedom of expression. Both states and private companies now find it easier to track people's behaviors, opinions and networks. Governments defend monitoring laws as protection for citizens and national interests. In parts of Europe, new anti-terrorism laws widened intelligence authorities' access to citizens' data. Legality alone is not enough, since limits must also be necessary, proportionate and serve a legitimate purpose.

  Courts have become central players. The European Court of Justice's 2014 decision in the Google Spain case let people claim a "right to be forgotten" or "right to be de-listed". The approach is much debated as a balance between privacy, free expression and transparency. A number of countries have since recognised it, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2015 the same court found that the Safe Harbour Agreement was not valid under European law. That agreement had let private companies legally transmit personal data from European subscribers to the US. In 2016 the European Commission and the US government agreed on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield as a replacement. It brought data protection duties for receiving companies, safeguards on US government access, redress for individuals and an annual joint review.

  Treaties and statutes are also multiplying. The Council of Europe's Convention 108 on automatic processing of personal data has been modernised. Since 2012 four more Council members have signed or ratified it, along with three non-members from Africa and Latin America. Recital 153 of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation asks member states to reconcile data protection with freedom of expression and information, including journalism. Between 2012 and 2016-20 UNESCO member states adopted data protection laws for the first time, bringing the global total to 101. Nine were in Africa, four in Asia and the Pacific, three in Latin America and the Caribbean, two in the Arab region and one in Western Europe and North America. Another 23 countries revised their laws.

  Encryption is a harder test. According to Global Partners Digital, only four states have secured a general right to encryption in national legislation. Thirty-one have laws that let law enforcement intercept or decrypt encrypted communications. Some companies have moved to protect their users anyway. WhatsApp introduced full end-to-end encryption in its messenger service, and Apple contested a law enforcement warrant to unlock an iPhone used by the perpetrators of a terror attack.

  Journalists' sources are especially exposed. Mass surveillance technologies, mandatory data retention and disclosure of digital activity by third-party intermediaries are leading threats. National security and counter-terrorism laws are increasingly used to override source protections. Between 2007 and mid-2015-84 of the 121 countries surveyed, or 69 per cent, saw developments in source protection laws. The Arab region led with 86 per cent of states, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean at 85 per cent. Asia and the Pacific stood at 75 per cent, Western Europe and North America at 66 per cent, and Africa at 56 per cent.

  Whistle-blowers have gained ground too. As of 2015, at least 60 nations had adopted some form of whistle-blower protection. The United Nations Convention against Corruption entered into force in 2005, and by July 2017 a total of 179 countries had ratified it. The Inter-American Convention Against Corruption has been ratified by 33 member states. The African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption was ratified by 36 UNESCO member states. In 2009 the OECD Council adopted its Recommendation for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

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• 7. The Changing Media

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  By the end of 2017 the International Telecommunication Union estimated that 48 per cent of individuals regularly connected to the internet, up from 34 per cent in 2012. Growth was slowing, though, from 10 per cent a year in 2012 to five per cent in 2017. Mobile phones did much of the work. Unique cellular subscriptions climbed from 3.89 billion in 2012 to 4.83 billion in 2016, which is two-thirds of the world's population. More than half of them were in Asia and the Pacific, and a forecast put the 2020 figure at 5.69 billion. In 2016 almost 60 per cent of people had access to a 4G network, up from almost 50 per cent in 2015 and 11 per cent in 2012.

  Pricing schemes complicate the picture. Zero-rating lets providers offer free connectivity to specific applications, which helps some people over economic hurdles. Critics accuse it of creating a "two-tiered" internet. Mozilla and Orange have tested an alternative called equal rating in Africa, which zero-rates all content up to a data cap and favors none. Choice varies widely. Some countries offered only a handful of plans across all mobile operators, while Colombia offered as many as 30 pre-paid and 34 post-paid plans.

  Age shapes where people turn for news. The 2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report surveyed 36 countries and territories. It found that 51 per cent of adults aged 55 and older consider television their main news source, against 24 per cent of those aged 18 to 24. For online media the pattern reverses, with 64 per cent of the youngest group and 28 per cent of the oldest choosing it. In 2016 the Arab Youth Survey found that 45 per cent of young people interviewed saw social media as a major source of news. In Africa, television is gaining audience share over radio, historically the most widely accessed platform.

  Broadcasters now cross borders. The BBC, Al Jazeera, Agence France-Presse, RT and the Spanish-language Agencia EFE use the internet and satellite television to reach foreign audiences. In January 2017 the multi-language grouping owned by China Central Television changed its name from CCTV-NEWS to China Global Television Network. In 2016 the BBC announced 12 new language services, among them Amharic, Igbo, Korean, Pidgin and Yoruba. It branded this its biggest expansion "since the 1940s". Streaming works the same way. Netflix, which began in the United States in 1997, expanded its global service to 130 new countries in January 2016. It passed 100 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2017, up from 40 million in 2012, and 47 per cent of its users were outside the United States.

  Newspapers face a harder road. Between 2012 and 2016, print circulation fell in almost all regions. Asia and the Pacific was the exception, where sharp sales growth in a few countries offset falls in historically strong markets such as Japan and the Republic of Korea. India's print circulation grew by 89 per cent in those years. Revenues from digital subscriptions and digital advertising are rising significantly, and capturing more of that growth remains a pressing challenge.

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• 8. Laws and Transparency

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  On the 28th of September 2015 UNESCO adopted the International Day for Universal Access to Information at its 38th session. The following year, World Press Freedom Day participants adopted the Finlandia Declaration on access to information. They did so 250 years after the first freedom of information law was adopted in what is now Finland and Sweden. The United Nations goals add a global target. Goal 16.10 calls for public access to information and protection of fundamental freedoms. UNESCO reports on indicator 16.10.2, which counts countries with legal guarantees of public access, and its constitution commits it to "promote the free flow of ideas by word and image".

  UNESCO's monitoring shows that 112 countries have adopted freedom of information legislation or similar regulations. Twenty-two of them did so after 2012. Africa grew fastest, with 10 countries adopting laws in five years, which took the regional total from nine to 19. Seven Asia-Pacific countries adopted laws, bringing that region to 22. Two countries each in the Arab region and in Latin America and the Caribbean joined, along with one in Western Europe and North America.

  In June 2006 nearly 70 countries had such laws, and in 19 of them the laws also applied to private bodies. Privatisation put banks, telecommunications companies, hospitals and universities in private hands, which fed demands for wider coverage. Angola, Armenia and Peru cover only private companies that perform public functions. The Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Finland, Trinidad and Tobago, Slovakia, Poland and Iceland cover private bodies that receive public funding. Estonia, France and the United Kingdom cover certain sectors. In South Africa, individuals have used the Promotion of Access to Information Act to learn why a loan application was denied. Minority shareholders and environmental groups have used it to seek information on the damage company projects might cause.

  Having a law is not the same as using it. The Global Right to Information Rating gives advocates and legislators a way to assess a legal framework. Largely regardless of region, the top-scoring countries tend to have younger laws. Of 109 countries with data in the United Nations Secretary General's 2017 report, 43 per cent do not sufficiently provide for public outreach. Another 43 per cent define exceptions to disclosure too widely. Officials are often unfamiliar with transparency norms or unwilling to apply them. Journalists run into unanswered requests, long delays, heavily redacted documents, arbitrarily steep fees and a lack of training.

  The World Bank changed course in 2010 with a policy that commits it to disclose any requested information unless it falls on a list of exceptions. That list covers items such as personal information, attorney-client privilege and security and safety information. Two older pressures pushed disclosure in other settings. In 1983 the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection listed eight consumer rights, including "consumer access to adequate information to enable making informed choices according to individual wishes and needs". Investors were the other group. Secretive decisions by company directors prompted disclosure legislation in Britain in the early 20th century, and later in North America and elsewhere. Scandals at Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Adelphia and Global Crossing then led the US Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002.

  Open data became the newest front. The United States launched the data.gov portal in 2009, and a wave of government data opening followed worldwide. The Open Government Partnership, founded in 2011, now has some 70 countries with National Action Plans, most with strong open data commitments. The Open Data Charter was founded in 2015, and 17 national governments have adopted it, half of them from Latin America and the Caribbean. The 2017 Open Data Barometer from the World Wide Web Foundation found open government data portals in 79 of 115 countries surveyed. In most cases, it said, "the right policies are not in place, nor is the breadth and quality of the data-sets released sufficient". Whether those portals fill with complete, current and well-organised records is the measure that will decide what all this promised transparency is worth.

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