Tromsø Convention provisions as the legal guarantees for accessing official digital information
Oleksiyuk, T., 2023, Joint Proceedings of Ongoing Research, Practitioners, Posters, Workshops, and Projects at EGOV-CeDEM-ePart 2023 co-located with the International Conference EGOV-CeDEM-ePart 2023. Corvinus University of Budapest, September 4-7, 2023 (published on CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org, ISSN 1613-0073) https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3449/
Abstract
The Council of Europe Convention on Access to Official Documents (Tromsø Convention), developed in 2009, enshrines the right of everyone to access official information, which includes the state-owned digital data pools and public registers. Tromsø Convention offers provisions that could enhance public access to government digital data and improve the efficiency of government digitalization processes. Three critical elements of the Convention support this positive outcome, including its comprehensive definition of „official documents,” the requirement for governments to manage their documents in a manner that facilitates easy access, and the obligation of public authorities to take steps to promote transparency and efficiency in public administration by making official documents available to the public. Making access to official information digital will help to promote openness and transparency of state institutions and will improve the level of trust between society and government.
However, the challenge lies in changing the approach from the current system of paper document management to a digital one inside state and local authorities. This reframing of the current paradigm is not only about modernizing administrative practices and document flow but also about embracing the concept of openness of official information by design. The practitioner’s paper reflects the author’s experience – the Vice President of Access Info Group (the international group of independent experts aimed at monitoring the implementation of the provisions of the Tromsø Convention) – in evaluating the regulations of the Tromsø Convention in promoting free access to official information. The main objective of this paper is to explore whether the Tromsø Convention provisions can facilitate the accessibility of government digital data to the public and promote the effectiveness of the government’s digitalization processes.