Smart Disclosure

There are enormous economic and civic good opportunities in the “smart disclosure” of personal data, whereby a private company or government institution provides a person with access to his or her own data in open formats. Smart disclosure is defined by Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White House Office for Information and Regulatory Affairs, as a process that “refers to the timely release of complex information and data in standardized, machine-readable formats in ways that enable consumers to make informed decisions.”

For instance, the quarterly financial statements of the top public companies in the world are now available online through the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Why does it matter? The interactions of citizens with companies or government entities generate a huge amount of economically valuable data. If consumers and regulators had access to that data, they could tap it to make better choices about everything from finance to healthcare to real estate, much in the same way that web applications like Hipmunk and Zillow let consumers make more informed decisions.