The background here is that someone did a FOI request for the announcement audio
Whatever the other merits of this project, I'd like to know the motivation behind the FOI - I really dislike it being used for trivial reasons.
Whatever the other merits of this project, I'd like to know the motivation behind the FOI - I really dislike it being used for trivial reasons.
Every request enhances the publics understanding of government, and every request creates the opportunity for the information to be reused in new unforeseen ways. Some may seem trivial (like a random apology generator), others may significantly impact people’s day-to-day lives (better public transit routing apps). But until the FOI happens, and people can play with the data, neither will ever happen. Frequently the people doing impactful things with the data, aren’t the same people requesting it. It’s also likely that many of those impactful projects would never be started if the data wasn’t already free. So every “trivial” request may lead to something far more impactful down the road.
If you’re concerned about the cost involved. Then I would recommend criticising government for not making FOI fulfilment either efficient, or unnecessary. If government agencies just published the data (like TfL does), then there wouldn’t be any need for FOI requests.
Journalist, hobbyist, investigators, or the just generate intrigued can organise the data or trawl through it to their hearts content.
That’s literally what Datasette was built for.
“We don’t do FOI any more; it’s all online but uncurated. Download the petabytes of data from gov.uk and I’m sure you’ll find it in there somewhere.”
I'd try it myself, but local train station announcement systems are commercial software that's licenced by the central rail authority, so I suppose it wouldn't work.
Perhaps you could define the boundary between trivial and non-trivial uses?
Have you had to deal with requests for information that you regard as falling on the trivial side of things?
Is there a solution to the your dislike of certain types of use?
Apologies for all the questions but your comment feels like it’s missing some genuinely interesting detail.
It's not why FOI was created or motivated. There is genuine need for openness but this sort of thing just tasks already underfunded and stretched departments with work that distracts from providing core services.
Feels like infrastructure queries shouldn’t come under FOI when i first consider it. Then i suppose there might be legitimate reasons to care; Perhaps things like conflict of interest in contract allocation, or things not being put out to tender.
As you mention, it feels like publicly funded things should be able to be inspected by default, so perhaps having it out in the open all the time is best. That requires funding and it requires a commitment at a governmental level to get it right.
With the lack of funding provided to public institutions in the uk though it’s pretty hard even for the basics to be done well. I’d better not get on to that subject lest i get testy.
Back to your main point though, I don’t know how to differentiate (with a set of unambiguous rules) between the trivial and non-trivial in a way that doesn’t accidentally prevent real use cases.
Perhaps the way FOI is set up is at fault here rather than the people who make use of it, trivially or otherwise.