The new Public Access to Information regime brings “awesome” implications, according to the creators of the Island’s first open data website that can assist with the refining of PATI questions.

On the eve of PATI’s implementation this month, Louis Galipeau and Andrew Simons used their www.Bermuda.io site to collate and post a repository of all the new information statements that will serve as the first line of enquiry.

As of the weekend, statements were online at Government’s website — but the information commissioner’s site www.ico.bm was not yet up and running.

PATI is intended to roll back secrecy, while the aim of Mr Galipeau and Mr Simons has been to empower Bermuda’s public by providing a storehouse of publicly available data.

By last night, the Bermuda.io site had information statements for more than 50 public authorities online — each explaining what is available and what can be withheld, along with the requisite information officer to contact with a PATI enquiry.

“When we launched Bermuda.io, one of the points we stressed over and over was the large amount of information about Bermuda created by the Government that is already in the public domain,” Mr Simons explained.

“It has been open for inspection for years, but it might be on paper records that you have to seek out.

“Sometimes that additional work presents a roadblock to enquiries. That was the context in which we launched the site — to make this stuff more readily accessible.”

There are “100 news stories in every Budget book”, Mr Simons said — and “100 more when you have a collection of Budget books spanning a meaningful period of time”.

PATI increases the power of the public to request records, but also stands to change what the two men call the “default assumption”, or the culture surrounding Government records. “Previously the assumption was that information would be held and not shared,” Mr Simons said. “Hopefully, the new assumption is that data should be open by default.”

Mr Galipeau added: “This is the beginning of something awesome — not necessarily the ideal, but it’s better than nothing.”

Exactly how long it will take for the ordinary public to come to grips with the new power is anyone’s guess, considering that PATI became law just six days ago.

For the founders of Bermuda.io, the worst outcome would be silence.

Knowing how to look for data could be daunting to the uninitiated. When approaching the laws governing specific records, Mr Galipeau has been accustomed to looking for the words “open for inspection”.

“If you find those words in Bermuda law, then you know that’s the record you need to go after,” he said.

Even with PATI significantly broadening that scope of openness, the two hope that Bermuda.io can assist in refining a request.

As an example, Mr Simons pointed to schedule three of the latest Budget book on page C-25: “Government Department Accommodation Rental”. It lists each department’s location and estimated rental cost.

Mr Simons noted that the Auditor General is based in Reid Hall on Reid Street, and has been budgeted $207,468 for the 2015-16 rental.

The Bermuda Department of Land Valuation’s website shows different parts of Reid Hall for rent on different floors, so that anyone trying to learn whether too much was being paid would know to frame their question in terms of square footage rented, or which floor.

In the push to shed more light on Bermuda’s governance, even the information statements issued now under PATI, and available online, contain valuable new details on the structure of the authorities they represent, Mr Simons added.

Ideally, the two want to see open data licensing rather than information being licensed under restricted terms — although, as Mr Galipeau conceded, “it’s asking a lot”.