Proactive disclosure

Proactive disclosure is the act of releasing information by a government on its own initiative without the specific data having been requested by any person, or such act by a non-government entity in compliance with a requirement imposed by a government. It is an aspect of transparency requirements toward creation of open government.

Proactive disclosure is related to but differs from reactive disclosure. Reactive disclosure, usually mandated by freedom of information law, occurs only when a request is made, while proactive disclosure occurs as a routine without the information being requested. Proactive disclosure has also been referred to as stealing thunder, active disclosure in the United States and suo moto disclosure in Latin which means upon its own initiative.

Proactive disclosure generally refers to one of two related open government practices: open data (broadly speaking) or mandatory proactive disclosure (narrower scope, mandated by sunshine law). Open data refers to a government's default practice or general policy to broadly make machine readable data within its control (subject to certain exemptions) openly available, simple to access, and convenient to reuse, and to do so as a routine business practice on an ongoing basis. In recent years this is most often carried out via an online data portal or repository operated by the government or a credible NGO like the Internet Archive. Such policies may mandate the release of a wide range of data and records generally of various subject matters or interests (including data that may be of no relevance to accountability, such as historical weather records) and may do so with or without legally requiring the release of specific data set (including those highly relevant to holding the government accountable). It may also more narrowly refer to mandatory release by law of specific data within a narrower scope by government entities and certain private entities (such as publicly traded companies). The data subject to so such mandatory proactive disclosure are usually records that would enable the public to hold the entities accountable and often of some degree of political sensitivities.

Proactive disclosure, like freedom of information, is an aspect of transparency efforts pursued in most cases by governments of liberal democracies. Unlikely freedom of information however, proactive disclosure is not the exclusive domain of liberal democracies. Some governments of illiberal and authoritarian societies also mandate proactive release of specific data that supports its policy objectives or enhances its governance authority. Depending on the scope of the mandatory release, it may form a crucial aspect of its propaganda.