Digitalización y transparencia: ¿un “responsable de la trasparencia” y su “asistente digital” como herramientas del buen gobierno del futuro?

The article critically examines the discipline of the right of access to acts of public administration within the framework of European Union law and Italian law: — with their most recent reforms, they clearly place a strong emphasis on the issue of transparency. Based on the evidence that transparency (as well as democracy) obviously cannot come free of charge —and that “freedom of information” laws cannot automatically produce the desired change in the citizen-public administration relationship— it is suggested that a “responsible for transparency,” who would become a point of reference for citizens, be provided for. It is also suggested that —in the era of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and, especially, of the fourth industrial revolution developed by artificial intelligence— such an “officer responsible for transparency”, a public employee in flesh and blood, may also benefit from a system of artificial intelligence in the interface that would act as a “digital assistant” for transparency issues. With the ultimate goal of turning transparency, from a magic word devoid of concrete meaning, into a tangible reality: that is, to enhance good governance in the era of digitization.