The Risks of Open Government

Went to the Open Government Mashup yesterday afternoon, couldn't make the morning session but I made it in time for the session on Challenges for Engagement, (the Twitterstream is on #opengov) and it was a microcosm of the opportunity - and barriers - to Open Government.

And there was some very stirring stuff, but (and this, a they say, is a big but) - I think the people at the session shied away from dealing with a really big issue which in my view can scupper a lot of potential initiatives, which is the risk/liability culture. This was best expressed by Chris Thorpe, Developer Advocate for the Guardian Open Platform when he noted that if early man had to deal with the risk assessment issues Government does, he'd have never come down from the trees. "Risk is like Kryptonite" said another

The issue can be encapsulated by one rather good example - a crowdsourced rubbish collection, pot-hole filling etc service (see picture above) in which people can take pictures of and then report potholes, and these are then featured on a council website. Brilliant, you would think. Not so fast, noted Sharon Cooper, DirectGov Director of Strategy & Product Design - there are all sorts of worries about council liability for people reporting them and then getting injured by tripping on them, for example.

Update - good correction in the comments from Paul Clarke:

As I remember, Sharon's point was a more subtle one than just the wider risks and liabilities that web exposure may generate.

The example was one of openness and community involvement going a step further than just reporting: if defects are openly discoverable AND citizens (organising as volunteers) start to repair them themselves with spade and gravel, then a whole new class of liabilities arise when the fix suddenly caves in.

This is not to say there is not a lot of great work being done, the last session of the day had some great examples of services being worked on. and a lot of opportunity to free up services. But, as Thaler and Sunstein note in their book "Nudge" on the game theory of choice architectures, if eventually all these services hit the issues of risk and liability then there will be very severe limitations.

I felt there was a bit of resistance in the room when I aired these views - after all, its a hard problem to fix and vendors prefer to go on vending, enthusiasts to be enthusiastic etc - but systemically it is the major barrier to major change in my view. There are two plays strategically:

- Chip away at the risk culture directly, expose it for its ridiculous extremes and unravel it. Systems people know that cost of near zero risk goes up geometrically!

- Work around it by launching services elsewhere that will then undermine it.

We need to do both. I look forward to the next Open Government Evening Debate

Upate - 50 other barriers to Open Government over here - We Shall Overcome!