Court upholds rejection of access to voting machine source code

An Appeals Court in Paraguay has confirmed a ruling that denies public access to the source code of electronic voting machines slated for use in the October municipal elections.

The decision by the Fifth Chamber of the Civil and Commercial Court of Appeals upholds a prior ruling that rejected a public information access request filed against the Superior Electoral Justice Tribunal (TSJE).

The request was submitted by Luis Carlos Benítez Aguilar, an IT technician. He sought digital access to the precise identification of software components under free licenses (GPL, LGPL, MIT, BSD, or similar) within the leased electronic voting machines. He also requested the source code in digital format, along with corresponding verification hashes for these modules.

In its ruling, the court stated that while electoral transparency is important, it must be balanced with legal protections. The TSJE had provided available information and consultation links. However, the court explained that the full source code delivery was restricted by contractual conditions and intellectual property rights. The court clarified that the applicant's right to know administrative and technical information does not automatically grant a subjective right to obtain a digital copy and publish the entire code, regardless of applicable licenses, ownership, modifications, or contractual obligations.

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The applicant had the right to know the administrative and technical information in the possession of the public authority, without needing to justify their interest. But that right does not, by itself, grant them a subjective right to obtain a digital copy and publish the entire code used in the machines, regardless of the applicable license, the ownership of each development, the modifications introduced, or the current contractual obligations.