At its core FOI (or Access to Information laws) is a tool for the public to retrieve information held on its behalf by government agencies. In some countries the politicians and public servants tend to not agree with the "holding the information on behalf of the public" bit. But if you as a user view it as such you will write much better applications. Your application letter should convey, not bluntly, but correctly, that you have the right to access the information you are asking for.

In most FOI systems you have to write a letter (in some cases forms are provided) to the government agency that holds the documents (computer files and audio and video recordings are also counted as documents). In some countries a verbal request will suffice, but in my experience it's best to put the request in writing to have a "paper trail" of the application. This will come in handy if you need to appeal a rejected application. Click here for an example of a FOI request.

In countries where the system works well you will find a "how to use" section on the agencies web site.

The main differences between countries (as you can see in the FOI Index table summary) are: the turn around time, the processing cost and whether the default setting is that agencies hold information on behalf of the public and that documents are usually accessible to the public. For more specific information - please see publications and PhD thesis.

In federal political systems you also need to know whether the agency you plan to FOI falls under state or federal FOI.

The main users of FOI for political accountability purposes are political parties in opposition and journalists.

Remember: the most potent way of making FOI work better is to use it. If users resign to a poor working system you have let the culture of secrecy win.

On your left you will find a few of sample links to the FOI sections on various government web sites. Note that in the US frequent use of FOI has made some agencies put in "electronic reading rooms" on their site containing information that has been deemed public in previous FOI requests.

It should be noted that after September 11, 2001, the US fell from being one of the role models of FOI (together with Sweden) into a pit of new secrecy. There are signs of recovery in the US, but it will take time. You don't re-build a social construct that took decades to achieve quickly. Currently Sweden and a handful of northern European countries are still leading the way on FOI (Sweden's first FOI related legislation was passed in 1766), however even in these countries the "wave of secrecy" that swept the world after 9/11 has been noticeable.