Information policy

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Information policy is the set of all public laws, regulations and policies that encourage, discourage, or regulate the creation, use, storage, access, and communication and dissemination of information.^[1] It thus encompasses any other decision-making practice with society-wide constitutive efforts that involve the flow of information and how it is processed.^[2]

There are several fundamental issues that comprise information policy. Most prominent are public policy issues concerned with the use of information for democratization and commercialization of social life. These issues include, inter alia, digital environment, such as the digital divide, intellectual property, economic regulations, freedom of expression, confidentiality or privacy of information, information security, access management, and regulating how the dissemination of public information occurs. Certain categories of information are of particular importance for information policy. These include news information, health information, and census information.

Information policy is the central problem for information societies. As nations make the transition from industrialism to post-industrialism, information issues become increasingly critical. According to sociologist Daniel Bell, "what counts now is not raw muscle power or energy but information" (Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, 1973, p. 37). While all societies have been to some extent based on information, information societies are almost wholly dependent on computerized information. As Marc Uri Porat, the first researcher to use the term "information policy", wrote: "The foundation of the information economy, our new central fact, is the computer. Its ability to manipulate and process information represents a profound departure from our modest human abilities". The computer's combination with telecommunications, he continued, posed "the policy problems of the future". (Marc Uri Porat, The Information Economy, 1976, p. 205.)