The Department of Customer Service is marking Right to Know Week 2020 by highlighting its work to give the citizens of NSW access to current and accurate data, and recognising how access to information plays a key role in responsible and representative democracy for its citizens.
Right to Know Week NSW is hosted by the Information and Privacy Commission and aims to raise awareness of a person’s right to government held information and encourage citizens to take an active interest in their right to access information.
“The theme for Right to Know Week this year is ‘Future-proofing information access rights’,” Department Secretary Emma Hogan said.
“Citizens have a right to access NSW government information in all forms and the increasing digitisation of government processes has implications for how government can improve outcomes for citizens seeking this information.”
The Department of Customer Service is committed to the principles of open government: transparency, participation and accountability.
Transparency, participation and accountability mean the public understands the workings of their government and can contribute by engaging with public policy processes and public service providers.
The public can also hold the government to account for its policy and service delivery performance.
“The Department actively promotes a culture of open by default; facilitating the release of data; adhering to the open government information principles; and ensuring accountability, transparency and public participation through legislation and policies,” Department Secretary Emma Hogan said.
“We commend agencies who apply these principles of open government as they utilise new technologies and digital platforms to carry out their business or in providing services to the public.”
Work will continue to expand public access to information by publishing data sets at Data.NSW and providing customers with access to proactively published information that meets accessibility standards.
