The Limits and Benefits of the Open Data for the Lebanese Society

Nowadays we are living in a digital society where a lot of information is produced and stored by the companies and governments every day. Much of this information is protected by intellectual property rights or by laws related to classified state information and it is not accessible to all the public. However in recent years, a rise in the popularity of open data is obvious claiming that allowing citizens access to govenment information would help increase democracy by helping them make better and good decisions for themselves, put limits for the actions of the policy makers and lead more to public debates on important cases (Access Info Europe and Open Knowledge Foundation, 2011). In the case of Lebanon, open data could be helpfull for a better electoral system which would ensure that all thetypes and categories of citizens are represented. The latest Lebanese census is almost 10 years old that’s why there is a lack of information regarding certain important socio-demographic data like: gender, religious affiliation …(“Open Data to Design Better Elections”, n.d.). This type of data should be easily available to the public because based on these characteristics, everything can be determined in this electoral system. In addition, more detailed information on the public budget and the government spending would be necessary for all the society to be able to understand the ways in which public money is being spent. According to Global Open Data Index, the Lebanese government has failed to release a budget in recent years and the information that is available online from 2013 and before is fragmented and not openly licensed (“Place overview”, 2014). In the absence of these data, it is impossible for the society actors and everyday citizens to understand the effects of the actions taken by the Lebanese politicians and to penalize these for immoral or ineffective spending of public money. Thus, politicians are free from public accountability and have the power over the public budget, which is contrary to a democratic country. Finally, open data could also be used in order to show the gender pay gap which still exists all around the world including Lebanon and affects women worldwide by letting them inferior to men on many levels (Avis, 2017). No public data is available showing the huge gap between male and female employees in Lebanon and this makes it difficult for female employees to realize that they are being discriminated and also decrease the efforts of the organizations fighting for women’s rights which do not have access to any kind of data as a base for their demands (Hejase, Hejase & Hejase, 2015).

However, opening data for the public will not create benefits for all groups of citizens in Lebanon since it will reinforce the social inequalities and the dominance of those that hold most of economic and political power. First, data itself is a reflection of the social injustices and it is not a true reflection of the realities experienced by the people due to the biases while reporting and recording data (Johnson, 2014). On the one hand, disadvantaged groups do not trust government officials and tend to lie the information that they consider to increase the risk of discrimination or penalties, and, on the other hand, government officials tend to lie or change data in order to favour socially advantaged groups. Second, open data would not be easily accessible to all because of the existence of a digital divide (Janssen, 2014). In order to have access to data an Internet connection will be necessary and, more importantly it will be necessary to have the knowledge and skills necessary to interpret it. As disadvantaged groups lack these skills, it is likely that open data will be interpreted according to the positions expressed by the dominant social groups who are better positioned to make their voices heard and effective(Johnson, 2014). Third, opening data will not change the fact that data is collected in the aim to put stricter control over the population and it will only make it easier for everybody to identify those who are not conforming to the rules and seek to police their behaviour (Johnson, 2014).

The goal to achieve open data cannot be achieved if governments are allowed to continue to hide information based on the argument that making it available to the general public will limit the privacy of many categories of Lebanese people and place others in danger of being socially rejected. It is true that opening data without laws and limits can cause a huge harm, but what is required from governments at the moment is an access to statistics that would allow the citizens to know more about their responsibilitis, for example: voting to the politicians that are truly representing their interests and creating programs that truly tend to face the social issues. For this to happen, governments have to start publishing the data that is specifically requested by citizens and non-governmental organizations after being sure that the data is presented in an unbiased and objective way.

References

• Access Info Europe and Open Knowledge Foundation (2011). Beyond access: open government data and the right to (re)use public information. Access Info Europe and Open Knowledge Foundation.
• Avis, W.R. (2017, August 17). Gender equality and women’s empowerment in Lebanon. Retrieved from: reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/175-Gender-Equality-and-Womens-Empowerment-in-Lebanon.pdf.
• Hejase, A.J., Hejase, H.J., & Hejase, H.A. (2015). Gender wage gap in Lebanon: Explorative analysis. Journal of Applied Economics and Business Research, 5(1), 1–19.
• Jansen, K. (2012). Open government data and the right to information: Opportunities and obstacles. The Journal of Community Informatics, 8(2), 1–10.
• Johnson, J.A. (2014). From open data to information justice. Ethics and Information Technology, 16(4), 263–274.
• “Open data to design better elections in Lebanon” (n.d.). Retrieved from: developmentseed.org/projects/lebanon-open-election-data/.
• “Place overview” (2014). Retrieved from: 2015.index.okfn.org/place/.