Data leaks: opportunity or obstacle for open data sector
Fecha de la noticia: 28-10-2016

The revelations by Snowden, the Falciani list or, more recently, the dissemination of Panama Papers by ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) are examples of the open publication of critical data that has had a great impact on socio-economic spheres worldwide. But... Do such leaks help or, instead, hinder good governance and global open data sector?
With this question the session "Breaking the power of the closed" started in the latest edition of the International Open Data Conference, a panel moderated by Martin Tisne from Omidyar Network, which put the focus on the power of the openness to tear down the walls of the closed information. Mar Cabra, from the ICIJ, argued that data leaks are a great support to uncover unknown subjects for the whole society, and at the same time, to highlight and accelerate key issues related to transparency, opening new frontiers for open data sector. After all, the openness of the information not only generates new conversations but empowers citizens, as Hervé Falciani said.
In fact, both experts consider a risk that the data may not be opened up as it would mean a barrier in the fight against corruption, tax fraud or financing illegal activities -as in the case of Panama Papers, where 33 companies were blacklisted by US government for their financial support to terrorism or arms trafficking. However, according to the words of Javier Moreno -from the European Media Alliance-, there is still a long way to go until the data openness and leaks imply a real change in government policies and positively impact the life of citizens.
To minimize these risks and, simultaneously, to maximize the impact of the data, Moreno has emphasized the need to promote collaboration between different stakeholders: journalists, activists, NGOs ... Only in this way, according to him, it is possible to rescue the information that remains hidden in thousands of raw data through search engines. Something that is still a utopia, as Mar Cabra explained. Media must maintain their independence from other stakeholders. Therefore, they can not seek help in non-governmental organizations to carry out these tasks as they are financially supported by governments and they may tend to skew the information.
Another interesting issue during this IODC16 panel which generated debate and disagreement due to the different views of the speakers was data privacy during the leak and openness of information by the media. Mar Cabra used her experience with Panama Papers to share with attendees the methodology followed by the team of researchers and journalists when processing information. From the 11.5 million documents available, only a quarter of them are public. Many of them contain personal data -such as passports, postal addresses, bank accounts... - that must remain anonymous. Thus, a team of 500 professionals work daily analyzing the political interest data that do not violate privacy and can be transformed into a story. All these documents are available in the data base https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/ which any user can access to reuse them.
On the other hand, Moreno thinks that ethical limits are essential, though he agrees with the importance of creating good stories based on data. According to Moreno, citizens had needed many centuries to achieve the right to privacy and data leaks could be a violation of that right if they are not conducted with due care.
Other issues that aroused great interest among the public were the different international regulations on data protection, ethics limits when dealing and publishing information and the impact that the leaks may have at the openness of information as well as the necessary secrecy of both companies and governments on specific issues, as pointed Javier Moreno.
Overall, the debate revolved around two opposing themes: data leaking without fear to hide any information as in the Snowden case or, on the contrary, the need to establish ethical limits. Thus, in this dichotomy, attendees had the opportunity to know thanks to the experts the great opportunities posed by the release of information for governmental accountability or citizen awareness. However, it is necessary to remember both the role of privacy in these leaks and the importance of content treatment and curation to exploit the potential of the data, without violating the fundamental rights of confidentiality.