Members of the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee (OG FAC) and other top Federal officials said on Wednesday that technology should be leveraged in developing the sixth U.S. Open Government National Action Plan (NAP 6).
The National Action Plan carries the broad aim of making government more accountable and increasing public access to government data. The current National Action Plan is the fifth edition of the policy that first emerged in 2011.
The 15 inaugural members of the OG FAC – which serves as an advisory body to the General Services Administration (GSA) administrator – met with GSA leadership, White House staff, and other Open Government Partnership representatives during the committee’s first public meeting on Oct. 23 to develop a timeline and strategies for the NAP 6.
GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan encouraged focusing on technology solutions to improve open governance and collaboration with the public while developing the NAP 6.
“The notion about citizen participation and transparency and accountability – none of that is new, it’s baked into our Constitution,” said Carnahan. “But what is new as I think about this is how people expect to have this transparency and accountability and engagement … and I hope you as a committee will consider the first is looking at open government through the lens of technology, because that’s how people expect to be able to interact with their government these days.”
“We are thinking about how to make it easier to access authoritative government data sources,” she added. “We understand that with the rise of [artificial intelligence] and large language models that increasingly to build trust, we need to make sure that that data is easily accessible and machine-readable.”
Other officials also agreed that most dialogue surrounding open governance involves technology. Committee member Suzanne Piotrowski, the director of the Transparency and Governance Center at Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration, said that while she doesn’t believe that technology is required to have open governance, it is central to discussions.
“I’m not sure if it’s right to put technology in the middle, but [much] of how we currently think about open government tends to be a large focus on technology,” said Piotrowski, adding that many of previous NAP initiatives such as “crowdsourcing, data, transparency, participation, in different ways, focus on technology.”
Suggestions made by other members of the committee for building a tech focus into NAP 6 include using technology platforms to gather broad public input on plan commitments and using technology to make the drafting process more open and collaborative instead of relying on traditional public comment periods.
NAP 5 is set to expire at the end of the year, with requirements stating that NAP 6 will need to be completed no later than a year after the end of the previous NAP.
Some of the current aims of the NAP 5 include developing and sharing effective equitable data practices and updating the Freedom of Information Act to reflect and acquire technological advances.
