UK Freedom of Information Act Comes Into Force

norfolkboy writes "The UK Freedom of Information Act comes into force today, 1st January 2005. Under the new law, passed by Parliament in 2000, all citizens will have information to any non-exempt information from ANY English, Scottish, or Welsh public sector authority or institution, and the information must be presented within twenty days."

Comments

UK.gov shredding frenzy

[skinfitz]

The UK Government (lovely honest people that they are) have been having a paper shredding and email deletion frenzy ahead of this law coming into force.

Of course it's just a coincidence - they just thought they would clean up all the old records by destroying lots of them. Nothing to see here, move along.

Offentlighetsprincipen

[LeftOfCentre]

Some countries have had a powerful, constitutional freedom of information act since 1766.

Re:Still copyrighted, though?

[Zachary Kessin]

Pretty much all works created by the brittish state are copyright to the crown. This is not really HM the Queen in person so much as the legal body that the crown represents.

BBC iCan page has plenty of information

[Andy_R]

The BBC has an recently launched an interesting new area of it's website devoted to public involvement in politics, called iCan. As you might expect, it contains an excellent plain english guide to what you can and can't get information on, and how to go about it here