Disclosure by Design: Designing information disclosures to support meaningful transparency and accountability

Abstract

There is a strong push for organisations to become more transparent and accountable for their undertakings. Towards this, various transparency regimes oblige organisations to disclose certain information to relevant stakeholders (individuals, regulators, etc). This information intends to empower and support the monitoring, oversight, scrutiny and challenge of organisational practices. Importantly, however, these disclosures are of limited benefit if they are not meaningful for their recipients. Yet, in practice, the disclosures of tech/data-driven organisations are often highly technical, fragmented, and therefore of limited utility to all but experts. This undermines a disclosure’s effectiveness, works to disempower, and ultimately hinders broader transparency aims. This paper argues for a paradigm shift towards reconceptualising disclosures as ‘interfaces’ – designed for the needs, expectations and requirements of the recipients they serve to inform. In making this case, and to provide a practical way forward, we demonstrate Document Engineering as one potential methodology for specifying, designing, and deploying more effective information disclosures. Focusing on data protection disclosures, we illustrate and explore how designing disclosures as interfaces can better support greater oversight of organisational data and practices, and thus better align with broader transparency and accountability aims.