Transparency and open Government Data: Possibilities and Challenges Based on the Access to Information Law

The open data paradigm has been gaining ground in public management and it has been incorporated into the right to access to information, which is a fundamental component of polyarchies. The article aims to analyze the institutional possibilities and challenges to the implementation of this paradigm in Brazil, based on the Law of Access to Information. Normative analysis is carried out, as well as a case study of the Federal Government, where content analysis techniques are employed to empirically verify the treatment dispensed in the first and last instance to requests to open data filed with the Electronic Service System Citizen Information (e-SIC), in periods before and after the publication of the Open Data Policy, in 2016. The results demonstrate legal support for open government data requests. However, they are hampered by a "gray" area created by the infralegal hypotheses of restriction to access to information, which imposes a warning on the effectiveness of the new Open Data Policy.