@opentechuk The Digital Enlightenment is Now

I attended this year’s OpentechUK on Saturday and have been overwhelmed by the sense of the occasion. This is brought home to me by one of the opening presentations which showed how what we are doing here-an-and now is critical to our future.

Phil Booth from NO2ID gave one of the most compelling, clear and incisive presentations that I have heard recently. His message was simple. The grounds of the digital information age are being decided now. If we do not get them right we will live with the consequences for decades or even longer. He uses the phrase “database state” to emphasize that states now collect huge amounts of information on people and organizations and use these in ways that we do not even know about. I get the impression that much of this is simply embedded in the culture of control rather than any overt malicious intent. But this country has shown how spectacularly incompetent it is to manage the privacy and appropriate use of information and it is clear that we cannot assume by default that the state is responsible and that we can delegate our interests to it.

For that reason everything that we’re doing in many different organizations and institutions to liberate information is critical to our future. That’s why I am actively supporting the Open Knowledge Foundation because it is one of several places where the Digital Enlightenment is being worked out.

It may seem arrogant to compare ourselves with the pioneers of the Enlightenment but we know that we cannot judge our part in history. Phil gave a number of simple but clear principles about how we should act. I wasn’t able to recall them all (they may be available on Twitter) but here are some general conclusions I take away:

• Never stop believing in and acting for what you consider to be right.
• Make your message clear and simple.
• Be pragmatic but do not compromise your principles.
• Do not give up
• Never assume that you have “won”. The struggle is continuous.

We are fortunate that in Britain we have a long history of the assertion of rights and that this is embedded in our (unwritten) constitution. We are allowed to protest, to campaign, and to say (almost everything) that we like. So many countries are not so fortunate and it is important that we show that the struggle matters.

Unfortunately these constitutional principles are not embedded in day to day government. We cannot assume that legislators and administrators will defend the rights by default. We have to identify the problems and campaign to get the right solution. Here for example is the innocuous sounding clause 152:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/feb/28/convention-modern-liberty-information

which if it had been implemented would have seriously eroded our rights without anyone knowing. So, by default, the electronic era encourages the decay of previously a hard fought rights.

If we add up all problems of this sort, they appear overwhelming. It is because we are distributed and because we communicate that we can be effective. At Opentech there were many individuals and groups pursuing parts of the Digital Enlightenment. Nobody can do everything, and indeed all of us can only act in very small areas.

But it is the sum of all of those areas that makes it all work. My own area is Open Scholarship. It’s probably one of the more tractable areas. You will probably find that most of the people involved would agree that scholarship should be open and the issue appears to be primarily one of money rather than fundamental principles. On the assumption that over the next years we can achieve a recognition of Open Scholarship and start moving towards it on a broad front, we will not only achieve enlightenment in that specific area, but we will also encourage others lose battles are more challenging.

So my personal commitment is to work constructively towards a limited goal which is important and achievable. Opentech (and likewise OKCon) are great opportunities to reinforce our strengths, to find new allies, our own personal efficiency.