World Wide Web: Poland less transparent than Russia

Poland ranked 35 in the international World Wide Web organization report regards the government transparency level. The UK is the leader among 86 countries appeared in the analysis. Poland scored less than Estonia (13th), the Czech Republic (17th), Russia (26th) and Hungary (33rd) what means that the Polish government is less transparent than Czech and Russian authorities. The open data barometer, which measures how data about government’s activity is accessible for citizens was used as a research tool. The authors included Poland in the category of emerging & advancing countries, described as follows, “these countries have emerging or established open data programmes — often as dedicated initiatives, and sometimes built into existing policy agendas... [they]have a variety of different strengths and have great potential to develop innovative approaches to open data. However, many still face challenges to mainstreaming open data across government and institutionalising it as a sustainable practice”. Poland ranked 14th in the group. What is interesting, Poland was placed alongside with not only Russia and the Czech Republic, but China and India, Mexico, South Africa as well. In 2013, the G8 leaders signed an Open Data Charter aiming to make public sector data openly available.