Government agencies lacking websites ‘may be sued’

Government agencies that lack websites and fail to ensure proper access to information among the population could be sued, as they are breaking the law, director of the Multimedia Information Systems and Technologies Center says.

Osman Gunduz told a roundtable on Tuesday that the December 2005 presidential decree On Access to Information stipulates that all government agencies are to create their websites, enabling citizens to acquire the needed information, including data on their activity.

“Although two years have passed since then, some official bodies still lack websites. The web-pages of the Ministries of Emergencies, Culture and Tourism, Industry and Energy, and Defense Industry, as well as the Tariff Council and Migration Service, which are quite important for the public, have yet to be developed,” Gunduz said.

He maintained that the data uploaded on some official sites does not fully comply with the legal requirements and fails to provide comprehensive information on access to Internet resources.*