Discussing Transparency and Accountability tools in Budapest

Transparency and Accountability tools

This panel took place at the Internet at Liberty Conference in Budapest (September 20-22)

Speakers:

• Colin Maclay, Berkman Center on Internet and Society, US
• Matt Braithwaite, Google US
• Karl Kathuria, BBC UK
• Jillian C York, Berkman Center
• Anas Qtiesh, Technology for Transparency Network

Karl Kathuria, from BBC UK, mentioned BBC´s concerns about their global audience (they broadcast in 33 languages). They are focusing on services online so they are concerned about how to deal with places where sites and blogs are not available at certain times. He presented Geostats, a tool to track when BBC sites are available based on access to BBC World Service at different time peaks and alert states.

Matt Braithwaite, from Google US, focused on Google´s Transparency Report, which shows requests from Governments to remove content from services or provide information about users of their services. The traffic tool provides information about traffic to their services around the world and historic traffic patterns for a given country or region.

Jillian York, from the Berkman Center, presented Herdictweb, a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University that shows when and where a given site is reported inaccessible. She focused on the Wikileaks example.

Anas Qtiesh presented the Technology for Transparency Network, a project of the Global Voices initiative promoting transparency and accountability around the world. The Budget Tracking Tool helps track money allocated for development.