Stipulate that provisions apply to contractors or quasi-governmental agencies

Information gathered from the public using public funds should remain publicly-accessible, regardless of government decisions to delegate its management. The government often uses third party entities or contractors to handle, research, or generate government information. Still, government decisions to employ outside contractors should not result in the public losing access to information. The scope of public information should be defined to include information managed by vendors of government services. Similarly, open data policy provisions should explicitly apply to quasi-governmental agencies and other similar actors, such as multi-state agencies, government-sponsored entities and publicly-funded universities. Where information is collected from or on behalf of the public using the government’s legislative, regulatory, or spending power, the public should retain presumptive access to that information.

To ensure that the public retains access to its data, provisions should added whenever possible to the existing procurement, contracting, or planning processes requiring government contractors release government relevant information proactively.

Further reading:

• United States: Digital Services Playbook
• Paris: OpenDataParis Procurement Provision

Examples of language for this guideline:

Here are examples of the language for this guideline as included in policies on this site. Please note that the selections of text below are imperfect, and you should check out their source policies to read them in context.