Transparency in Data Mining: From Theory to Practice - Discrimination and Privacy in the Information Society - page 298

differences between these two latter arguments will be made apparent in the
paragraphs below).
17.4.2 Transparency - From Theory to Policy
Transparency as an Incentive for Fair and Efficient Policy (Or, Transparency
and the Role of Shame)
A basic (and intuitive) justification for transparency is that it facilitates a check on
governmental actions. Generally, society constantly fears that the acts of its
government might be flawed, biased, ineffective or inefficient. The relevant
officials might be improperly balancing rights and interests, led by their own
bigotry, or are over-influenced by private interests. This outcome might result
from the relevant governmental agencies incompetence, corruption, negligence,
mere error or perhaps unacceptable point of view. Officials might also try and
expand their authority to meet other objectives. They might try to apply tools
developed for battling terrorism towards the war on drugs or finding deadbeat
parents. “Project Creep” and “Function Creep” are central concerns stemming
from the adopting of data mining tools by government (TAPAC Report, 2004).
Transparency is a key measure to counter all these concerns.
When discussing this objective, the term “accountability” quickly comes to
mind. Transparency is at times considered synonymous to “accountability.” Yet
these concepts clearly are not the same. Accountability refers to the ethical
obligation of individuals (in this case, governmental officials) to answer for their
actions, possible failings and wrongdoings. Transparency is an essential tool for
facilitating accountability, by subjecting politicians and bureaucrats to the public
spotlight. Yet, it is merely one of the strategies that could be applied to achieve
this objective. Accountability might be achievable with more limited means.
Applying full transparency to achieve this accountability calls for specific
justification.
A call for transparency requires the expansion of information sharing schemes
beyond internal government review, possibly even to the broadest realm of the
entire public. The assumption that broadening the scope of information sharing in
this way will promote fairness and efficiency should not be taken for granted
(especially in view of transparency's detriments). A constructive way to
theoretically approach the benefits of transparency in this context is to return to
the work of Louis Brandeis. Brandeis famously advocated the use of transparency
to promote fairness. In a recent article, Lessig drew out two basic theories as the
foundation of Brandeis' call for transparency which relate to this issue and
justification - (1) shaming, and (2) the effects of market or democratic forces
(Lessig, 2009). These two theories prove helpful in examining whether
transparency is indeed effective in the context at hand, and its proper extent. For
this discussion, let us focus on “shaming” and draw out prerequisites for its
success. An analysis of the “market forces” element generates similar outcomes,
and will be drawn out in future work.