Anyone can make a Freedom Of Information (FOI) request — here’s how
Freedom of information
What is it good for? Absolutely everything! Who can do it? Absolutely everybody!
When you think of Freedom of Information requests (FOI) it’s likely you think it’s a thing only a journalist or someone with an official authority can do. The truth is FOI is more like DIY!
This year, stories like The Panama Papers and The Nauru files, have ushered in a golden age of investigative journalism. But in some ways it’s harder than ever to encourage good investigative reporting. Firstly, funding a fully fledged investigative team is expensive, so not many news orgs can afford to have one. Then there’s our whistleblower laws, where those who speak out have their personal and professional lives torn to shreds through penalties and even imprisonment. Plus there’s the power our government has to retain our metadata, such as our phone calls and emails, for two years.
But never fear, FOI is here and it’s a perfectly legal and relatively easy way for journos and anyone else in the public to get interesting and important information about authorities.
What the heck is FOI?
FOI is the principle that people have the right to know about public activities. Making an FOI request involves people seeking access to government data.
In Australia the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) provides a legally enforceable right of access to government documents. It applies to Australian Government ministers and most agencies, although the obligations of agencies and ministers are different. We pay taxes, we vote for our elected representatives, and so it’s only fair that we know what we’re getting for our hard earned cash.
Why is FOI important?
This year marks 250 years since the first freedom of information legislation was made in Sweden. In a statement for the anniversary, Australian state and commonwealth independent statutory officers said of FOI: Having access to government-held information is critical to citizens being able to scrutinise and meaningfully participate in government processes.
Sadly Australians are a little shy when it comes to FOI. Less than 4 in 100,000 Australians make FOI requests every year using right to know. Compare this to 72 in 100,000 in the UK.
On the world stage, Australia is rated 58th out of 111th countries for government openness, which is ok, but we can do better. We can do this by demanding information, which will put pressure on the government to change their internal culture to one that’s more open, transparent and accountable.
What can you FOI?
Maybe you want to know the cost of a new app developed by your local council, or perhaps you’re interested in police procedures when performing sniffer dog searches. Whether it’s a local curiosity or a question of national interest, putting in an FOI request on a matter helps you find different types of information about government authorities.
There are so many ways you can use the findings of an FOI request to help others. Take Lindsay Holmwood, who used FOI to find out which local restaurants were complying to OH&S standards by requesting info from local governments. From what was initially a request to protect the health of a family member with coeliac, Holmwood turned his findings into gotgastroagain.com, a database searchable by postcode that reveals food safety problems around Australia and some parts of the UK. Now that’s some good shit!
So how do you do it?
Right to know run by the not-for-profit Open Australia Foundation is the first comprehensive list of Australian FOIable organisations. It makes FOI transparent so you don’t have to be a lawyer to figure things out. Open Australia co-founder, Luke Bacon, says “there’s no better way to learn how easy FOI requests are than to make one.” And the best way to start is to ask yourself four simple questions.
- What are you interested in?
- What do you want to know about that?
- Which documents have that information?
- Who has those documents?
The Right to Know template has the contact details for just about any org you want to FOI. They even have an example text you can use for most requests:
Dear <Organisation with the information>,
Could you please send through <documents with the information you want>.
If possible, please treat this as an administrative/informal request. Otherwise please proceed with my request as a formal information request under the Act.
Yours faithfully,
<Your name>
Who can you FOI?
Any local, state or federal government authority in Australia.
How long does will your request take?
Usually less than 30 days.
What’s the cost?
Requests should usually be free but sometimes there’s a $30 fee. Thankfully Australians are passionate about crowdfunding for FOI requests so you can usually get someone to cover it.
Advanced tips:
- Document types: any text is a document. Eg. training manuals, spreadsheets, emails.
- Using time frames: two months is good in many instances but it depends on the data.
- Want to make a FOI to more than one organisation? Now you can with a new feature called batch requests.
Feeling overwhelmed?
Right to know allows you to annotate other people’s FOI requests to commend or challenge the official response. Think of it as bumping somebody’s Facebook post.
Open Australia also run monthly pub meetups where you can learn about initiatives to improve public access to information.
This article by Eliza Berlage was originally published at The Vocal.
