Ryan Malone

Try and ask those questions if you're in Beijing or Pyongyang and see how far you get.

We do have a very open, transparent, sound freedom of information law.

We've just got to make sure that it's fit for purpose in the modern age.

So if you think about 80s and 90s, if someone makes a request for a document, say you're the official, you know, you stand up, you go to the filing cabinet and you reach in and grab the manila folder, you know, there's the document, easy.

Nowadays, it is just a plethora of digital ways that we capture information.

It's emails, it's text messages, sometimes on personal phones, it's WhatsApp messages, do we still have them?

It's data sets, it's Zoom transcripts.

Now, the other side of it is the requesters themselves.

What we see a bit of in terms of these agencies is what gets referred to as sort of weaponisation of the OIA.

You know, for example, someone, some organisation might just flood an agency with tons of requests.

And the point is not really to get information out of them.

It's to slow them down and distract them from their day to day.

The other side of it, you've got fishing expeditions, which themselves aren't improper or unlawful under the Act.

you know, maybe you're a journalist, maybe you're an opposition MP, maybe you're a lobby group, whatever, you don't actually know what you want.

You're just asking for everything to do with a particular topic and then you'll get back to your desk and when the information comes in you'll sort your way through it.

So, you know, the idea that officials themselves have to wade through so much stuff and the nature of the requests have changed has meant that, yeah, it's a lot more work and it does cost the government more money ultimately.

So enter AI.

Having worked with so many public servants, I can say hand on heart that

that overwhelmingly the majority of them understand the act and the point of it, and they don't go out of their way to deliberately hide information.

And I know that would be frustrating for a lot of journalists.