Hartford Courant: New tool aims to remove the mystery of health care costs at Connecticut hospitals. “A new cost estimator tool launched by the Office of Health Strategy reveals how much medical treatment costs vary across Connecticut’s health care facilities. Standard procedures, like knee replacements, can cost nearly three times as much at certain hospitals than they do at others.”
transparency
The Stranger: Facebook Charged with Multiple Violations of Campaign Finance Law in Washington State
The Stranger: Facebook Charged with Multiple Violations of Campaign Finance Law in Washington State. “Election regulators in Washington state filed administrative charges against Facebook on Friday, saying the tech giant has ‘repeatedly violated’ a Washington state campaign finance law that requires transparency in local election ads.”
Bismark Tribune: Remote public access approved for ND court records in ‘major sea change’
Bismark Tribune: Remote public access approved for ND court records in ‘major sea change’. “Remote, electronic access will soon be available for North Dakota court system records. The state Supreme Court on Wednesday adopted a rule governing public access to court documents.”
Transparency Project: How 10News is making San Diego law enforcement files public (10News San Diego)
10News San Diego: Transparency Project: How 10News is making San Diego law enforcement files public. “After Senate Bill 1421 went into effect on January 1, 2019, California law enforcement agencies are required to make internal reports for officer-involved shootings and major uses of force, officer dishonesty and confirmed cases of sexual assault available to the public. The 10News database contains files released by the following law enforcement agencies in San Diego County…”
The Straits Times: Facebook rolls out measures to boost advertising transparency ahead of Singapore’s general election
The Straits Times: Facebook rolls out measures to boost advertising transparency ahead of Singapore’s general election. “Advertisers will be required to confirm their identity and location, and disclose who is responsible for the advertisements. The authorisation process will cover advertisers who run advertisements relating to social issues such as civil and social rights, immigration, crime, political values and governance.”
Microsoft: Customers are entitled to know about federal data requests (Ars Technica)
Ars Technica: Microsoft: Customers are entitled to know about federal data requests. “Microsoft revealed on Wednesday that it is fighting in court for the right to tell one of its large enterprise customers about a federal request for data hosted on Microsoft’s cloud services. The data request came with an order prohibiting Microsoft from notifying its customer about the request, and Microsoft views the gag order as inappropriate.”
University of Colorado Boulder: Anyone can look up school data with new online tool
University of Colorado Boulder: Anyone can look up school data with new online tool. “The database, first made available online in 2016 in a format designed mainly for researchers, is built from 350 million reading and math test scores from 3rd to 8th grade students during 2008-2016 in every public school in the nation. It also includes district-level measures of racial and socioeconomic composition, segregation patterns, and other educational conditions.”
