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UK Freedom of Information Act Comes Into Force

Posted by michael on from the only-as-good-as-the-enforcement dept.

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."

3 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. Still copyrighted, though? by anthony_dipierro · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I assume works created by the UK government will still be subject to crown copyright, though. So you'll have access to the information, but you can't republish it.

  2. Re:Spinning disk anyone? by macz · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Ahhh, but 20 (business days) from the initial request is a shorted deadline than our government has (ours used to be 60 days, but it might have gone to 30 days back in the mid eighties IANL)

    The clock starts upon receipt of the request, and must make its way through myriad, draconian bureaucracies before the actual request to pull the info, from a shelf, or off site is issued.

    The actual window to pull this data is much smaller that 20 business days might suppose. The only thing this lacks are serious consequences should the deadline pass without producing the non-exempt info. In typical British style the authorities are limited to saying "Stop! Or I shall have to say Stop! Again!" ie: this law has no real teeth, like Bobbies have no handguns.

    --
    ...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
  3. Big deal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    all citizens will have information to any non-exempt information

    Key word: non-exempt

    In other words, your citizens will have access to any information you decide to allow them access to. Very often, this results in releases of documents that are 90% blotted out, except for useless information like a few instances of "the", "and", etc.

    Not to mention, you have to know about a thing before you can even request information on said thing. This has not done wonders in the US.