The Superintendency of Securities may provide access to bank information when investigations because of breaches are carried out in the stock market.
The decree took effect on December 17, 2016, and states that when the Superintendency of Securities (SMV) requires information on bank depositors and liabilities, this will be requested through the Superintendency of Banksof Panama. In addition, the two regulators signed a memorandum of understandingto facilitate exchange of information.
The failure of polls on the presidential election in the US shows that in order to get the right information, data must be collected and analyzed with scientific rigor, free from any bias caused by the personal interest of pollsters and analysts.
EDITORIAL
Only 1 out of the 20 main pollsters, newspapers and television stations in the United States who possessed all the tools needed to properly manage the demographic data and surveys, was right in indicating who the next president would be.
The Treasury's power to access customer's personal data held by telecommunications operators has been confirmed.
The Agency for Data Protection of Inhabitants (Prodhab) rejected the appeal filed by Millicom against the Directorate of Revenue of Intelligence at the Treasury for requesting data from their customers, arguing that the Treasury is authorized to request subscriber's name, ID number, contracted service, exact address and phone number.
In contrast to international doctrine on access to public information, a ruling by the Costa Rican Supreme Court has accepted as valid a crude duplicitous technique used to block data management required to a public institution.
EDITORIAL
The Constitutional Chamber of Costa Ricahas rejected an appealpresented by journalists working for the weekly newspaper El Financiero, thereby validating the use of passwords to prevent computer analysis of a database containing information on wages paid at the State Bank of Costa Rica. SeeConstitutional Court limits access to free public database (In Spanish).
A study by the Ministry of Labour on the state of the labor market, whose results have been ready since December 2015, has still not been disclosed to the public.
In late 2015 the Ministry of Labour announced that it had finished collecting information for the "National Study of the Labor Market Survey" and that its results would be released soon. However, almost five months later, according to an article on Crhoy.com, the survey data has still not been presented publicly.
State officials do not own the information they manage, and when that information has not been legally declared as reserved, they must ensure its availability to the public.
EDITORIAL
And 'availability´means that public institutions must have all the doors to obtain it wide open, both administratively and technically.
State officials often create administrative barriers to free access to public information, in the form of lengthy bureaucratic processes, including sometimes filling out forms that include insidious questions about what the information will be used for.
The Central Bank will stop using the productive structure of 1991 and move to a calculation that will take 2012 as the base year for estimating national accounts.
From a statement issued by the Central Bank of Costa Rica:
The new figures use the year 2012 as a reference and are based on the methodological guidelines established in the Manual for the National Accounts System 2008 (2008 SNA) and will allow standardization of classifications and nomenclatures used in macroeconomic statistics.
The delay in publication of the database obtained from the Survey on Living Standards in Nicaragua in 2014 is another example of the difficulty in accessing and viewing in timely manner information which is in the hands of state officials.
Being informed is essential for decision-making in any aspect of life, especially in the field of business. However, it is a common problem in the region to find serious resistance in many state offices to deliver information that, if it´s disclosure is not specifically prohibited by law, should be available to the public.
Many of the officials working in Central American governments are annoyed at the idea of the information they handle being accessible to citizens, and one way or another, they are impeding its availability.
EDITORIAL
"- Send a letter to Mrs Fulana, the person in charge of authorizing the release of information you have requested, stating the reasons for your request".
The private sector in Costa Rica is having doubts over the ability of the Treasury to prevent information leaks, if approval is given to a requirement for companies to disclose shareholder information.
The business sector fears that the authorities will not be able to control possible leaks of confidential data which companies must provide if the decree proposed by the Directorate General of Taxation is approved.
The information presented by the Telecommunications Authority does not allow consumers to compare the quality offered by different operators.
Data published by the Superintendency of Telecommunications (Sutel) through a virtual map on its website does not specify in detail the quality of the calls, and the coverage of operators in specific parts of the country.
Between 2010 and 2014 internet access in households in the metropolitan urban area in the country increased from 18.3% to 27%.
In 2010, it was reported that in rural areas of Guatemala only 1.4% of households had internet access, a figure that hasn't changed to date. Nationally, 12.8% of the population has access to the internet.
The manager of the National Institute of Statistics, Ruben Narciso, told Estrategiaynegocios.net that "...
The Securities Commission of British Columbia in Canada, has issued a resolution barring the two top executives of Petaquilla from trading shares of the company until financial information is presented for the period ending July 2014.
Problems continue for Petaquilla Minerals, which breached a salary payment arrangement that should have been finalized in October and it has now been reported that two of its executives have been banned from buying or selling shares in the company.
Panama is the only country in the region which has improved considerably in the use of information technology in the last year.
Investments in the field of information technology have resulted in more and better use of these IT services in Panama, which has improved its overall position in the use of technology, according to the Information Technology 2014 report, prepared by the World Economic Forum World.
Congress has for the moment suspended the enactment of the controversial law approved a few days ago.
The Honduran Congress has for the moment suspended the much opposed law which was believed to be unconstitutional and it has sent it to a special committee for review and definition on whether it contradicts the Law on Access to Information.
español
7974
