Local Information Policy: Confidentiality and Public Access

T he increasing use of sophisticated electronic data processing techniques to store, manipulate, and retrieve information about individuals represents a clear threat to personal privacy. On the other hand, the extensive computerization of government records may have a distinctly negative impact upon the right of citizens to access government files, and ultimately upon their right to know about many of the public decisions which affect their lives. These issues become closely intertwined when we address the problems of providing appropriate access to public information in the face of extensive computerization of local government information processing. The City of Charlotte, North Carolina, is presently engaged in the design and development of a sophisticated "on-line" type computer-based information system. This effort, which is being conducted under contract with the Urban Infor-