Open by Default: Empowering Canadians and Preserving Records

About This Project

Summary

Investigative reporting is one of the most effective tools to hold governments accountable. But the process of obtaining documents/information from the government is complicated and time consuming. We created Open By Default (OBD), the 1st database of its kind in Canada, to make it fast and easy for journalists and citizens to search 31,000+ government documents. Since many government departments delete records after 2 years, our database also creates a permanent archive of government records.

Goals & Objectives

OBD has 3 goals: 1 Acquire+preserve all documents acquired from the government via access to information requests 2 Create an easily searchable database of these records available to all citizens 3 Continuously grow the database by adding all documents acquired from the government now and in future

Results & Impact

OBD makes it fast and free to find public interest stories so Canadian outlets can continue to do critical investigative work. As of July 2024 it has: 1 collected and preserved 31,000+ documents totaling 4 million+ pages 2 amassed 59,000+ page views 3 led to the publishing of almost a dozen stories