class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide # Running an Access to Information platform in France: obstacles and success stories ## TICTeC - Right to Know across Europe: impacts and lessons learned ### Samuel Goëta ### 2021-09-28 --- ### Madada ? A project of Open Knowledge Foundation France (okfn.fr) launched in October 2019 to simplify the use of the French FOIA law (loi CADA). .center[] --- ### The leaning tower of open data in France .pull-left[ .center[] ] -- .pull-right[ * Open Data is mandatory by the law since October 2018 (_loi pour une république numérique_). * Each government department has just published an open data roadmap. More than 500 commitments [announced yesterday](https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/liste-des-actions-prises-par-les-ministeres-dans-le-cadre-des-feuilles-de-routes-ministerielles/). * 🥈2nd country in OECD OURdata Index 2019 ranking open data policies. * 🥉3rd country in EU Open Data Maturity Report ] --- ### A tower leaning because of its unstable foundations .pull-left[ .center[] ] -- .pull-right[ Loi CADA (1978) : a large definition of administrative documents, a simple procedure and an ombudsman (CADA). Now a constitutional right. But… * Awareness of the law is still weak among citizens and civil servants. * Requests are often bypassed or not even considered (50% of requests await response). * FOIA officers and procedures are often not in place in government administrations. They too often await the ombudsman's intervention (_avis CADA_) before releasing documents. ] --- ### The making of madada .pull-left[  ] .pull-right[ * Building a small team of dedicated riders: Laurent, Pierre, Pascal, Eda… and with the help of MySociety, Transparencia.be, Ouvre Boite… * Importing a quite massive database, the public service directory: 50k+ contacts * Requesting CADA its own email database (PRADA): a request first refused then approved… * Explaining civil servants and citizens our approach based on publicity of exchanges… ] --- ### Sucess stories: report on sanctions for welfare benefits  > _"We assess that 115000 households are withdraw from the welfare revenues each year. […] "Thanks to Madada, almost all departments (101) have received our requests. After the legal deadline, only a third have give an acknowledgement of receipt (37) and 13 released the data."_ --- ### Sucess stories: virus concentrations in sewage  --- ### Success stories: La Quadrature, tracking surveillance  --- ### Success stories: ensuring transparency on public procurement and subsidies .pull-left[  ] .pull-right[ ### _**In a nutshell, among 188 requests sent to departmental councils, we have received only 61 positive answer, less than 32%.**_ ] --- class: center, middle # Thanks! Let's discuss : contact /at / madada /dot/ fr