Opinion | Governments are hiding data
Summary
Governments worldwide are increasingly withholding, manipulating, or deleting public data, undermining democratic accountability and complicating journalism and research efforts.
Key Points
- Governments globally are increasingly deleting, manipulating, or withholding public data, threatening democratic accountability.
- Restricted access to information hampers journalists, watchdog agencies, and citizens, hindering oversight and transparency.
- Manipulation of data, such as crime statistics, distorts realities and complicates comparisons over time.
- The undermining of public data access poses a structural threat to democracy and risks flawed outcomes in AI systems reliant on official datasets.
