Open the gates of information

This article covers the release of "The Power of Information", a report commissioned by the UK Government and written by Ed Mayo, chief executive of the National Consumer Council, and Tom Steinberg, director of MySociety and creator of the 10 Downing Street e-petitions service. The report calls on the Government to engage with grassroots web activism by communicating with the public through user-generated communities rather than official websites. If implemented, this would greatly free up access to, and controls on the re-use of, data held by the public sector, according to the article's author, a technology reporter writing for the Guardian.