Principle 14 – Reputation and Context.
The transmission and accessing of information is more than the transmission of data. It is a communication event. Communication or the transfer of information is a social activity which requires both parties to know the reputation and characteristics of the other party and the context of the communication to be explicit and understood. When information is to be stored, the reputation and characteristics of those permitted to access it should be established and the reputation and characteristics of the person storing the data should be kept with the data and made accessible.
Reputation

Reputation is defined as The general estimation in which a person is held by the public. For Social Networks to work we must know the reputation of the other parties to any communication. Reputation is attached to individuals but it is separate from identity. Reputation consists of personal characteristics and of the performance of the person in past transactions.

Electronic Social Networks depend for their success on the ability of people to easily share information and ideas with others. The attractiveness of the networks comes from the ease with which people can join and leave groups, and from the ability to remain anonymous if desired. Unfortunately as they become more popular rogue elements take advantage of the openness and pollute the social environment. This pollution takes different forms. Some of these are:

Bad manners – forums and blog comments can become very confrontational with some people seeming to delight in negative, often abusive comments, attacking others behind the shelter of anonymity.
Stolen identities – celebrities are a favourite target for frivolous passing-off, but stolen identities can also take a more sinister form particularly amongst vulnerable groups such as those involving children or distressed people.
Fake identities – these are especially concerning when people pretend to have qualifications or expertise that they do not possess.
Slander and defamation – where, under the guise of anonymity, people slander or defame others.
Misuse of the network – people use the network to promote products or services inappropriately.
Multiple identities – Sometimes people have multiple identities in an attempt to gain an advantage.
Ill-defined and unreliable information – Some people “spread” rumours, partial, false or incomplete information.

These problems can be addressed if we introduce the concept of responsibility with anonymity. That is, people can participate in some activities without publicly identifying themselves providing they first establish some level of identification with the system and they agree to abide by the rules of the network. The rules depend on the context of the interaction. The context also establish actions that will happen if rules are broken. Examples of possible actions are for the person to be excluded from further activity, an identity shown to an aggrieved party or revealed to the whole community, or it can be given to authorities for civil action to be taken. These actions impact on the reputation of the identity and are reflected in way reputation of the party is evaluated.

It is important in Social Networks for the concept of reputation to be captured and available. It is reputation not identity that is important for the functioning of networks. To that end, identification is unimportant as long as the measures of reputation are reliable and accurate. The level of reputation required for different transactions varies from reputation not mattering to high reputation (which includes authority) being mandatory.

Not all access and activities on social networks are subject to abuse and for those there is no reason for the access to be open and anonymous.

To achieve control, where it is required, we need simple ways for people to identify themselves to a level appropriate to the context of the communication. That level of identity could be displayed on the social network site so that people can see how trustworthy the person is – without revealing who they are – and how trustworthy is the information. The person need not reveal anything about themselves (not even their pseudonym) but there should be mechanisms to provide a visual indication of the trustworthiness of both the government officials and members of the public.

If we are going to permit the public to store information in government files, a person must first establish that their reputation is sufficient to allow the storage of the information. The most common case is where a personal data is stored about a person. The person providing the information must either be the person themselves or a person with sufficient reputation in the eyes of the person who is the subject of the information or a person of sufficient reputation as defined by the government. The reputation of the person storing the information, not the identity, should be kept with the data and made available to people accessing the information. For personal data only the person concerned, or those the person explicitly or implicitly approves, should be allowed to access persona data.

Context

Context is the circumstances in which a communication event occurs.

There is no point in keeping information if it is never accessed or used. However, not all information should be available to all people at all times. Who should see information, at what time and for what
reason is determined by context. When it is decided that information is to be stored, the context of when and how it is to be released should also be established. This means that the characteristics (including reputation) of the person requesting access should be defined. Also the characteristics of any government official who can access or see the data should be defined.

If this is established at the time of storing data it means that if a person can prove they possess the appropriate characteristics access can be automated and there is no need to involve a government
official. The same access mechanism can equally apply for the public and for government officials.

In many circumstances a government official may be granted access to information that is not available to the general public. In those circumstances the public can ask the appropriate government official to access the information and the official may be able to provide an answer to a specific question without revealing any sensitive details. An example of this could be a researcher wishing to access information
that is of a personal nature but not needing to know the identity of the persons involved.

You said,

Great point. In fact, maybe if we concentrated for now on improving the use of these tools within the public service, that might help to build confidence and competence more widely.

Which I think is a 90% of the approach needed. If you think this way then you might log on to me.edu.au and compare the tools with govdex. Eventually the (preferred) tools for edu.au must align with those for .gov.au so both sectors might share a common culture = government/education by enquiry instead of by delivery. It’s happening of course, and the will seems to there, but there are a few things which appears to be in need of cultivation, particularly now that (with the institutional network’s engineers) the discussion is about “grids” and “clouds”. Neil touched on them in the 1 to 5 (fantastic, neil!)

In the edu space it’s called a “lifelong learning account”. It could be more, which you’ll get a feel for if you register at me.edu.au. I’ll point you at a blog entry to try and explain what i mean here.

I’ll also point you at this one in the UK, to see how a different culture approaches these things.

And thanks to all of you. I feel like I’m finally talking to adults.au.

If you can get the insiders using official collaboration and consultation platforms within and across government, their familiarity improves and you’re better able to have knowledgeable discussions about using them between government and citizens and other groups.

The informal networks exist – however formal networks imply endorsement and commitment, encourage participation and thereby carry greater weight. Such as the Vic Public Service Continuous Improvement Network.

My experience as a public servant was that one way of subverting the sometimes onerous overheads of official collaboration – which often felt like they had been designed by people with the express intent of making sure it never happened – was to simply create unofficial peer-to-peer networks where ideas got shared and information swapped anyway. In fact, in some ways the wonderful conversational world of Web 2.0 is really a digital version of the same instinct to connect and to work around the obstacles of official complexity.

There is solidarity to be gained by linking up with fellow enthusiasts inside the pbulic service, as well as with cheerleaders from outside, who can be helpful and encouraging but inevitably distant.

As a starting point, one opportunity is to practice with these tools of engagement inhouse. Use online participation as a way to engage staff in the organisation.

We know that employees who are well engaged in the organisation deliver better services than those who are unmotivated, unconnected, etc.

Encourage senior management to communicate via these online spaces (alongwith traditional forms of communication), which shows staff that they have permission to do the same. For example, a chief executive can use a blog to reflect what is informing his/her decisions (transparent decisionmaking).

An online space, like a wiki, can be used to share knowledge, ideas across the organisation. A project team that creates such online spaces needs to involve diverse disciplines (IT, Legal, Communication, Policy, Service Delivery, Evaluation,…) in the development. Bring in the internal ‘customer’ in the design. This is putting participation into practice.

Such online engagement would need to be integrated with normal business, otherwise it becomes an additional task on top of everything else that staff have to do. Linking with other communication channels within the organisation is also useful.

The culture shift falls not just on public servants alone. But government agencies can lead by example.

Following on your point regarding what makes a ‘good’ public servant, one of the dilemmas I struggle with in the public service is whether there is a conflict between loyalty to agency vs loyalty to whole-of-government.

A lot of the work other and I do has relevance and would be useful when shared with other Departments – and there’s no privacy or security considerations.

However the approval processes and frameworks for information sharing sometimes involves formal agreements and protocols regarding how different departments can share information or work collaboratively. These can add overheads to the process which, on occasion, make it easier for public servants to focus on their own ‘patch’ (Department) and reinvent the wheel when necessary rather than consult other Departments.

I would like to see more recognition, support and mechanisms for the discovery and sharing of information, expertise and resources (including software modules, systems, training packages, and so on) between Departments.

This would support innovation by cutting down the time and money spent on repeating the same mistakes – or successes. it would allow Departments to build on each others’ work and reinforce each others’ expertise for the good of the entire government.

Web 2.0 technologies can support this by providing improved mechanisms for public servants to share their information, expertise and resources across Departments and discover and build on the good work done elsewhere.

So perhaps a mechanism like the Victorian State Government Intranet would be useful at Federal level.