Govdirectory

A crowdsourced and fact-checked directory of official governmental online accounts and services. The easiest way to contact your government.

Website: https://govdirectory.org

Type of Digital Public Good

  • Open content
  • ✅  Open data
  • Open software
  • Open standard
  • Open AI model

1. Is it relevant to one of the Sustainable Development Goals?

  • 16. Peace and Justice Strong Institutions

    Evidence: Our vision is "Our vision is a world where people are empowered to engage with their government to ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels." and our mission is "We will enable a community powered directory where the online presence of every public organization is easily findable, queryable and trustworthy.". Together, they are directly related to target 16.7 and 16.8.

    Link to Evidence: https://www.govdirectory.org/about/

2. Does it use an appropriate open license?

Yes, this project is licensed under the following license(s):

3. Is ownership clearly defined?

Is the ownership of the project and everything that the project produces clearly defined and documented?

Yes

If yes - please link to the relevant copyright, trademarks, or ownership documentation for the project.

https://github.com/govdirectory/website/blob/main/README.md

4. Does the license of libraries/dependencies undermine the openess of the project?

Does this open project have mandatory dependencies (i.e. libraries, hardware) that create more restrictions than the original license?

No

If yes - are the open source components able to demonstrate independence from the closed component(s) and/or are there functional, open alternatives?

Not Applicable

If yes - please describe how the open source components are independent and/or list the open alternatives for the closed component:

Not Applicable

5. Is there documentation?

Does some documentation exist of the source code, use cases, and/or functional requirements. For software projects, this should be present as technical documentation that would allow a technical person unfamiliar with the project to launch and run the software. For datasets and data projects, this should be present as documentation that describes all the fields in the set, and provides context on how the data was collected and how it should be interpreted. For content collections, this should indicate any relevant compatible apps, software, hardware required to access the content and any instructions about how to use it.

Yes

If yes - please link to the relevant documentation:

6. Is non PII data and/or content accessible?

Does this project collect or use non-personally identifiable information (non-PII) data and/or content?

Yes

If yes - is there a mechanism for extracting or importing non-personally identifiable information (non-PII) from the system in a non-proprietary format?

Yes

If yes - describe the mechanism for extracting or importing non-personally identifiable information from the system in a non-proprietary format:

We use the open source tool Matomo to analyze web traffic, and it can export in various open formats.

7. Does the project adhere to privacy and other applicable international and domestic laws?

Has this project taken steps to ensure adherence with relevant privacy, domestic, and international laws? For example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union or the Supplementary Act A/SA.1/01/10 on Personal Data Protection for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (yes/no)

Yes

If yes, please list some of relevant laws that the project complies with:

  • GDPR

If yes, please describe the steps this project has taken to ensure adherence (include links to terms of service, privacy policy, or other relevant documentation):

8. Does the project adhere to standards and best practices?

Does this project support standards? (i.e. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 or other standards such as those listed on W3C)

Yes

Which standards does this project support (please list)

  • schema.org
  • XML sitemaps

Can you point to evidence of your support? (i.e. please link to your validator, open test suite, etc.)

Was this project built and developed according to or in adherence with any design, technical and/or sector best practices or principles? i.e. the Principles for Digital Development?

Yes

Which principles and best practices does this project support (please list)

  • The project has been developed in the open, following the criteria Code in the open, Maintain version control and Use open standards of the Standard for Public Code.

9. Does the project do no harm by design?

Has this project taken steps to anticipate, prevent and do no harm by design?

On the whole, does this project take steps to ensure that it anticipates, prevents and does no harm by design?

Yes

Is there any additional information you would like to share about the mechanisms, processes or policies that this project uses to avoid doing harm by design?

The project does not implement any new functionalities to contact governement agencies but merely points to those that exist. The data displayed is also already publicly available information, but in a user-friendly way. For some of the data we filter for a separate verifiable source (that is, when the information is not self explanatory).

9.a. Data Privacy & Security

Does this project collect or store personally identifiable information (PII) data and/or content?

Yes

If yes - please list the types of data and/or content collected and/or stored by the project:

  • In the content we collect who is in charge of a public agency. We store their name and when they start and end their office.

If yes - does this project share this data and/or content with third parties?

Yes

Please describe the circumstances with which this project shares data and/or content with third parties. Please add links as relevant.

Not Applicable

If yes - does the project ensure the privacy, security and integrity of this data and/or content collection and has it taken steps to prevent adverse impacts resulting from its collection, storage and distribution.

Yes

If yes - please describe the steps, and include a link to the privacy policy and/or terms of service:

The information is already publicly available from other sources, we just package it in another way. Privacy policy: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy Terms of use: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use

9.b. Inappropriate & Illegal Content

Does this project collect, store or distribute content?

Yes

If yes - what kinds of content does this project, collect, store or distribute? (i.e. childrens books)

It stores information about government agencies that are already publicly available in other sources.

If yes - does this project have policies that describe what is considered innappropriate content? (i.e. child sexual abuse materials)

Yes

If yes - please link to the relevant policy/guidelines/documentation.

https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use

If yes - does this project have policies and processes for detecting and moderating innappropriate/illegal content?

Yes

If yes - please describe the policies and processes for detecting, reporting and removing innapropriate/illegal content (Please include the average response time for assessment and/or action. Link to any policies or descriptions of how inappropriate content is handled):

The Wikimedia process consists of several layers of detecting, reporting and removing content. Since every edit is stored and is logged anyone can inspect the edits and undo them if they are inappropriate. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges There is also user defined abuse filters than can detect some types of content and either prevent them or flag them for human review. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Abuse_filter There are administrators that can delete and censor particular troublesome content, and a process for notifying them: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Administrators%27_noticeboard

9.c. Protection from harassment

Does this project facilitate interactions with or between users or contributors?

Yes

If yes - does the project take steps to address the safety and security of underage users?

Yes

If yes - please describe the steps this project takes to address risk or prevent access by underage users:

If yes - does the project help users and contributors protect themselves against grief, abuse, and harassment?

Yes

If yes - please describe the steps taken to help users protect themselves.

Development & deployment countries

List of countries this project was developed in.

  • Sweden
  • Netherlands
  • Germany

List of countries this project is actively deployed in.

  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • Germany
  • Ghana
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Norway
  • Philippines
  • Russia
  • South Africa
  • Sweden
  • Ukraine
  • Timor-Leste
  • United Kingdom