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The proposed dissolution of the INAI, Mexico’s autonomous transparency institute, represents a significant regression in open government standards, despite official claims that access to information will remain robust. In reality, the current administration has substantially reduced the availability and usability of public data. Key agencies now publish incomplete statistics, restrict access to essential operational details, and use formats that hinder digital analysis. This widespread opacity contradicts the narrative of increased transparency, revealing that critical information is often only accessible through formal requests rather than proactive publication. Furthermore, this institutional shift transfers the power to resolve transparency disputes from an independent body to the Secretariat of Anti-Corruption, a government entity. This structural change eliminates the crucial check-and-balance system that previously allowed citizens to effectively challenge information denials. Without an autonomous arbiter, citizens face a conflict of interest in which the accused administration decides on the validity of their requests, drastically reducing the likelihood of obtaining withheld data and weakening democratic oversight mechanisms. This article is highly relevant to the open data community because it highlights the dangers of merging transparency enforcement with executive power. It demonstrates how the lack of independent oversight directly leads to data degradation, making public information inaccessible, incomplete, or technically unusable. For open data advocates, the case serves as a stark warning that true transparency requires institutional independence, not just political rhetoric, and that the erosion of autonomous bodies inevitably compromises the integrity and utility of public data ecosystems.

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Published on 2024-11-21

Open Data

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