Open Data Asia 2020

BACKGROUND

In Malaysia, there has been only one government coalition in power since independence. This has led to politics being interwoven with business and many politicians holding positions in companies in which the government owns a stake. Furthermore, there is no official process or legal framework in place, such as a Freedom of Information Act, for citizens to request information or data from government. In this environment, citizens struggle to access information about the government.

Even if access is limited, collecting and publishing government-related data could enable greater transparency and better governance. In this action research project, we are working with Sinar Project to explore how technology could help address the lack of publicly accessible data by piloting a database of politicians, company directorships, and relationships that anyone, anywhere, can build on and use.

This project builds on the success of Sinar Project’s initial work, which mapped over 4000 politicians and persons of interest, 200 organisations and committees, and 900 government posts—creating a visual analysis of the intersection of business and political interests.

Diagram by Sinar Project

Working with and expanding the initial collection of data, this research project incorporates other relevant data into the database, such as that of spending and contracting collected by the media and civil society. Together with Sinar Project, we aim for this to serve as a pilot that can be replicated in other countries with limited publicly available government data.

PARTNERS