February has been a whirlwind but we’re back deep in TICTeC organisation and looking forward to the sunny summer sun in Belgium in June. Let’s see what the network have been up to this month!

FragDenStaat: are promoting the use of FOI to counter the activities and disinformation spread by the far right movement in Germany

mySociety: have been presenting their work at various UK conferences, working on funding bids, writing documentation to support people who receive exemptions around commercial interest protection and helping organisations working with marginalised groups in the UK. 

Access Info Europe: and MaDada (OKF France) in France created recommendations on how to improve the national access to documents law to align it with international standards (see here). Open Knowledge France sent the recommendations to the French government calling for the signature and ratification of the Tromsø Convention, a step strongly recommended by GRECO in its Fifth Evaluation Report on France (see here);

SPOON: Old EU ruling, new possibilities!

 The highest court on public law in the Netherlands used on an ‘old’ European Court of Justice Fish Legal ruling from 2013 – about an information request from a British NGO to several water companies – to rule that certain kind of environmental information can be requested from (semi) private enterprises on which the state has ‘decisive influence’. This applies to environmental information that is related to ‘public responsibilities or functions concerning the environment’ or ‘public services related to the environment’ where this decisive influence exists in a way that the enterprise cannot carry out its environmental tasks ‘in a genuinely autonomous manner’.

 This could mean that, for example, water quality measurements conducted by or on behalf of water companies can be requested. Also companies such as KLM, Schiphol, Gasunie, the Port of Rotterdam, and Urenco where this kind of decisive influence exists. If the Port of Rotterdam or Schiphol checks whether ships or airplanes comply with energy efficiency and emission regulations, are they performing an environmental task? The ruling by the Council of State does not provide clear guidance on this question, but it is certainly worth a try.

Save our right to ask for government information 

On Thursday, February 13, Tim, on behalf of SPOON and investigative journalists, was asked to participate in a roundtable discussion in the House of Representatives to inform Members of Parliament about the practice of the Dutch Open Government Act. Along with other representatives from journalism he advocated for preventing any restriction on our right to ask for government information, which is what government authorities otherwise might propose as a solution to the poor implementation of the law.

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: After nearly two years of legal battles (which, in our circumstances, is relatively fast), we have managed to compile information from all Regional Directorates of State Forests regarding their expenditures on promotion and media advertisements in 2022. After four years, two court rulings in our favor, and a change of government along the way, the Ministry of National Defense has finally responded to our request regarding the author of a certain opinion posted by the ministry’s official profile on a popular social media platform—unfortunately, the ministry does not know.

We continue our advocacy efforts to repeal Article 212 of the Penal Code, which, due to the disproportionate severity of its penalties, significantly restricts freedom of speech in Poland.

We have sent information requests to all 135 public universities in Poland regarding the holding of multiple positions by university authorities (potential conflicts of interest), purchases and vehicle usage policies, salaries of university authorities, legal proceedings, and procedures for handling complaints (such as those related to mobbing, discrimination, etc.).

Other requests aim to determine how the Ministry of Justice is implementing the European Commission’s recommendations on combating SLAPPs and what exactly is happening within the Polish Hunting Association following recent revelations of serious irregularities.

Additionally, requests have been submitted for information on recent government meetings with representatives of various international corporations (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, TikTok, Huawei, Uber) and their outcomes (e.g., the content of signed agreements).

InfoProVsechny:

Ma Dada: Our focus has been on looking for funding, as we are reaching the end of our current grant. We are trying to build bridges across borders, mostly in the EU for now, as we think it’s our best chance at doing more than just surviving.

Handlingar: We are looking into using the technical setup from Madada.fr with Ansible technology. We want to gather the Alaveteli network to develop the Alaveteli platform and make it be possible to run without simple flaws or downtime – and without dependence on MySociety or any specific supplier or developer. We believe the time has come for Alaveteli to become a well-organized open source project, including having better documentation, regular release cycles, and a 5 minute process to setup a fully functioning Alaveteli platform in a new country or jurisdiction. All according to best practices within open source software development such as the OpenSource.guide from GitHub. We want to do great work together with MySociety, the Alaveteli network and FOIA community to get funding for development in order to make the Alaveteli software simpler to run, safer to run, easier to maintain and easier to customize. All without issues and dependence on MySociety. We want to reduce the burden on us, our network friends and on MySociety and increase all our chances for collaboration and success with Alaveteli – and of course the Right to Know.

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong is continuing its national “FOI tour”, providing training on strategic usage of FOI for civil society organisations. In February, a workshop was held in Split, with preparations underway for Pula and Karlovac. 

Abrimos Info:  As the INAI is sunsetting we are doing an automated distributed backup of a few of the data files that we can access via a collaborative effort across the Mexican civil society. We are asking for a rapid response fund for this work. The secondary laws creating the new “Transparencia para el Pueblo” institution have been submitted and are on the fast track to be approved. We have promoted a press release demanding changes. A second release today: https://x.com/article19mxca/status/1896363257008652507

We will be presenting on Pidala.info at Open Data Day in Mexico on March 1st.  And of course we will be participating and talking about these efforts at TICTeC 2025. 

OpenUp ZA: OpenUp has been collaborating with the KiMitTud team to co-develop impact measures and reports for the Hungarian FOI platform ahead of the TicTec festival in June!

CITAD: In our efforts to promote protection of digital rights in Nigeria, we are holding a two-day training for judges and lawyers on prosecuting and adjudicating on human rights abuses. The training will be held from 10-11 in Abuja and then 17-18 in Lagos. This would be followed by a series of advocacy meetings with  members of the National Assembly whose objective is to entrenched respect and protection for digital rights in the country. .   

 

2025 definitely felt like it’s had quite the entrance and things have been full and exciting here at mySociety’s transparency team! So let’s take a look at how 2025 started for the ATI Network

mySociety: have been working hard putting together a schedule for TICTeC, there’s going to be an ATI day on June 12th which we hope you’ll all attend, and there’s set to be an amazing group of ATI focused sessions which we’re excited about! We’re also kicking off our FOI support process for organisations working with marginalised communities and hope to share more about that soon.

Access Info Europe: sent the Moldovan  recommendations to the Council of Europe Access to Information Group, a monitoring body established by the Tromsø Convention (see here). They’ve also been pushing forward working with MaDada in France and SPOON in Netherlands getting their legal reform work rolling. 

SPOON: Started 2025 with our focus for the new year: hitting the streets. One of the ways we will do this, is by launching a Woo-forum and proactively answer all questions we receive via that forum. This also means changing our workflow(s) from a ‘we know what you need’ to a ‘tell us what you need’ approach. And teaming up with other organisations and professionals on facilitating the needs that come forward from these questions, kicking off with mySociety participating in their Impact Measurement Mentorship program!

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: In December and January, we focused on several key initiatives, including expanding free legal support for SLAPP cases and seeking funding for this program. We worked to promote transparency in salaries, improve the process for selecting the new Head of the National Electoral Office, and streamline the management of asset declarations. Efforts were also made to enhance anti-SLAPP regulations and advocate for Poland’s membership in the Open Government Partnership. Additionally, we hosted a webinar on transparency with experts, published a new edition of the Transparency Report and other summaries, and released a podcast on Public Information Bulletins.

Ma Dada: Ma Dada has been working together with Access Info on legal reform proposals for France, the result of which was just published. We have also been busy looking for funding, and training some more journalists to use the platform. Also, we officially left X/twitter because it is so far from our values that it didn’t make sense to stay there and try to fight an algorithm that is programmed to destroy everything we work for. You can do it too, and https://helloquittex.com will help you bring your community over to bluesky/mastodon in a few clicks.

Transparencia: are exhausted by a SLAPP procedure ((Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) A Maire from Brussels spent 48 000 € of public money in lawyers fees to defeat us in a second trial and ask for a non-disclosure clause of this huge public amount. This expensive lawyer has been contracted without public procurement. The blackmail (in case of disclosure of this amount) is to send bailiffs to our house.

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: Had a meeting with the General Secretary of the Ministry of Interior and presented/discussed in detail our policy recommendations for the improvement of the access to information legal framework. 

VreauInfo: and Access Info Europe have been working hard on recommendations for the FOI law in Moldova. Lawyers for Human Rights widely distributed the recommendations to the public and public bodies in Moldova and they were picked up by an Anti Corruption journalist who wrote a piece on their work. 

Abrimos Info: After the constitutional reform in México, the National Transparency Platform is transitioning from the autonomous body to the executive branch. Together with 200 orgs we published a text demanding data integrity during the transition. In x and linkedin. There is an official release by the executive branch mentioning cryptography for data integrity, likely because of our push.

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If you’re trying to get the law changed, it can seem like a monumental task: where on earth do you start? 

One organisation that knows the answer is Access Info Europe: they have a long record of tirelessly working for better rights to information across the continent, and have systematised their approach. This month, their Director Rachel Hanna shared insights with the Access to Information Network, in a legal framework masterclass.

You can watch the video of this session for yourself, or read on for detailed notes.

The benefits of Access to Information

Rachel explained that Access Info are currently running a project to improve the right to information in four countries.

Access to Information (ATI) is a fundamental right, and recognised globally as such — but it doesn’t always work in practice. Countries may have a legal framework, but how it works is often different on paper and in practice. For example, one of the best laws in the world is Afghanistan’s, but it’s worth nothing if it’s not implemented properly. 

When ATI is in place but not functioning as it should, it can be extremely frustrating: it puts people off using it.

Rachel pointed out that the benefits to society of a fully functioning ATI are clear, and to underline this, she cited the important findings of the three finalists of Access Info’s recent Impact awards:

• The Lighthouse Reports uncovered discrimination in algorithms to detect fraud in benefits, based on gender and ethnicity.
• Altreconomia in Italy revealed the use of drugs to keep people calm in repatriation centres. 
• Eleanor Shaikh, who we’ve written about before, used the UK FOI law to help vindicate Sub-Postmasters caught in the post office Horizon scandal.

If ATI is not working does it still have benefits? Access Info carried out a campaign in Malta when a person was told they couldn’t submit an FOI request because they were not residents of Malta. They took the case to court, using pro bono lawyers; the court agreed with them and said that the way the law was being implemented was discriminatory.

They also fought against a law in Montenegro that would have lowered standards.

Groundwork

Rachel described their ATI Network project to equip participants with three strategies:

• Advocacy – the act of persuading or arguing in support of specific clause or policy. The audience here is the general public and policymakers. For example, Access Info published research highlighting gaps and areas of improvement in the implementation of the EU’s ATI.
• Activism – this refers to physically active advocacy: getting out in the street, getting noticed. Here, the audience is public and communities. For example, in India a 40-day sit-in in a small town, demanding the creation of an ATI law, was successful.
• Lobbying – this means persuading decision-makers to take a particular action. The audience is policymakers and lawmakers. For example, in Mexico a multi stakeholder group influenced legislators to pass an ATI Law.

All three tactics can be used in combination. You can work systematically by first building the foundations, then creating visibility and finally converting the mobilisation into law.

They are currently carrying out four national advocacy campaigns with the same initial approach for each country, then tailored activities depending on the specific state of the law, the skills the partner has, and how these can be adapted to the situation in the country. The steps are as follows:

1. First they analyse the national context in which the ATI law is working: what are the strengths and the gaps; is it aligned with international standards? Is it Tromsø convention ratified? If so, has there been a recommendation from the Group of States Against Corruption, GRECO? Are they part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP)? Is there a promise to advance the ATI law under OGP?
   
   All of these factors can be used to hold governments to account. There might also be legislative considerations: for example in Spain, ATI did not fall under the fourth action plan as had been expected, and probably won’t be under the fifth now, either. While the will had been there, but the political context changed, making it very hard to pass laws right now.

As part of this process you should perform some stakeholder mapping: do you have any good allies in the government? Are there civil society organisations, private sector, campaign groups, media that might support the cause? They performed this research and evidence building for each country.

1. They then designed an advocacy plan, deciding what their goals were: would they push for better law, or higher use of the existing law? Better implementation? Making this decision helped them decide what sort of activity would be most effective: advocacy, activism or lobbying.
   You can build a coalition with lawyers, academics, journalists. Craft your message according to who you’re talking to. Always make your message about its recipient: why should they care about it?
2. Finally, you need to anticipate and adapt to challenges. Obstacles might be resistance from stakeholders, your own limited resources or a lack of public interest, to name three. 

National campaigns

Access Info did baseline research on the legal frameworks within each country. They crafted their own methodology that goes a little further than the Tromsø convention itself does, because some areas, like Article 8, don’t go into much detail: this recommends a ‘quick and inexpensive review process’ but doesn’t g into any detail about a body overseeing this and what powers they should have — so Access Info have added what an ideal body would look like and the powers it would have.

After examining all countries that run an Alavateli-based site, they decided to work in four countries, each with different states of legal framework:

The Netherlands adopted a new law in 2022, and not signed or ratified Tromsø. The legislation is strong on paper, but weak in practice. There’s an opportunity in that certain aspects of the law will be under review at certain stages; and they would also like to push them to sign the Tromsø convention.

Access Info partnered with Spoon, and they formed their plan in this context: their goal is to improve implementation and strengthen oversight.

They plan to create guidelines for officials handling requests, alongside with the committee that has oversight over the law. There is a lack of guidance, so Spoon can step in, and Access Info will advise

After five years there will be an evaluation of whether there should be a commissioner, and they will definitely say yes – this is the most popular model for oversight worldwide.

They will also promote the use of Alaveteli at local level, with the aim of influencing those at the national level: they’re not keen because they’re concerned about data protection, especially the issue that the officials’ name are published on the request. So they’re going from the bottom up to show how local government is using it in a way that doesn’t encroach on personal data protection.

You don’t always have to go to the national government:, see where you can have the most impact, which is usually not the ‘top top’ — the middle might be better. By working with the government to create guidelines, making material that will be useful for the five year review, there is a great opportunity for impact.

Moldova has a strong law, but there are concerns: in 2023, an update broadened the scope of exceptions and lengthed the timeframe for responses; and the oversight body is not strong. It has been Tromsø ratified, however.

Specific issues are a low usage of the law, and poor implementation compared to a strong law on paper.

Here, Access Info partnered with Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) who manage the Alaveteli platform for Moldova.

The goal is to bring the law into line with international standards: it’s a new law, but LHR are performing strategic litigation on issues around its implementation. For example, the Evaluation Committee is an independent body which evaluates the integrity of judges and prosecutors: they have ruled that they don’t fall under the ATI law, which is a bad interpretation, so LHR are taking the matter to court.

They’re also litigating against the over-redaction of personal data in court documents.

In Moldova a second goal is to increase use of Alaveteli platform, by highlighting success stories, partnering with journalists to highlight positive outcomes from requests, for example when requests showed that the level of bullying in schools was growing, they were able to get anti-bullying programmes implemented in schools. Other findings have been around gender based violence and malpractice by doctors: basically, “what can’t be measured can’t be improved”.

LHR are providing legal support to requesters whose requests are refused, and fighting against the misinterpretation of the law, in the hope that all these approaches will combat the underuse of ATI in the country.

France has a weak law: they have not signed the Tromsø agreement, and there’s a lack of awareness and implementation from both civil society and journalists.

At this time there is no room for reform of the law, but they will push for signing the Tromsø  convention.

As with Moldova, the main aims are to raise awareness of the law, and increase its use via the Alaveteli platform (Ma Dada). They’ll train French civil society organisations and journalists and create an FOI community to build the foundations for when there’s an opportunity for legal reform. They’ll create a practical guide so that individuals can understand what FOI can do for them.

Greece has a very weak ATI legal regime: there’s no one law that covers everything. Rather, rights are scattered across different laws and it is a very confusing legal framework. When a request has been refused, the appeal needs to be sent to one of a range of different bodies. They are not signed up to the Tromsø agreement.

Here, they have partnered with Vouliwatch at the national level, and are pushing for legal reform, better implementation and public awareness

Their goal is for a new legal framework, and to get Greece Tromsø ratified.

Vouliwatch has already lobbied the parliamentary committee to discuss the amendment of the law. They’re working to build a coalition to push the campaign forward, and have trained civil society organisations and journalists in a workshop. They’ll use this coalition to help them with joint statements, open letters, social media, media articles, et cetera.

General advice

Know your audience It’s about persuasion, advocacy and lobbying. Know who you’re talking to and why they should care. In messaging you can consider three types of argument, using Aristotle’s three types of persuasion:

• Ethos: establish your credibility: why should they listen to you? For example, in the Netherlands, the government weren’t aware of Access InfoEurope, so they worked to create allies in government and got them to introduce them to the person they wanted to talk to.
• Pathos: make your audience care emotionally, for example by storytelling  — showing how ATI can do good in society, and why we need it.
• Logos : make logical arguments supported by facts. “You signed up to Tromsø, but your law is out of line with that”.

Make your arguments valuable to the person you’re speaking to Public officials care about the levels of public trust in government, for example, so that’s a good angle to come in on.

Policy briefs Keep them short. Use short paragraphs of less than 20 words per sentence, and four sentences per paragraph for maximum impact.  

Make your brief persuasive and valuable to the reader: locate problems in their communities and offer the solutions.

Common errors are to include too little evidence or research; and to use too much jargon – keep it simple.

Be adaptable to change Impact can come in different shapes and forms — you might not have realised that what you’re seeing is impact, but for example, journalists getting access to new stories counts as impact.

Be prepared Create networks that will be ready when there are legislative opportunities.

And finally: don’t give up.

Q&A

There were then questions from the audience.

Q: “Building a coalition” sounds great, but difficult. What is the least it can mean? 

Rachel: Being reactive to a specific situation. For example, when the authorities were closing access to beneficial ownership registers, we could use that moment when there was outrage. We could gather different people and organisations who cared about the same issue — even though they were all coming from different angles.

It’s very valuable to bring people in who have completely different angles: they help you to see, and prepare for, what the opposition would say. So for example we have some strong data protection advocates in our ranks, who might argue against disclosure on those grounds. Having this sort of discussion with your allies helps you to get the arguments clear in your head before taking the campaign public.

Q: Could you go into more detail on who was running the campaign and who you communicated to when using public outreach, classic media, social media? Who was in the team for each country and what roles did you have?

Rachel: Vouliwatch are really good at public outreach: so they already knew who to reach out to. On the other hand, in Moldova they haven’t done something like that before, so we are helping them. Basically it depends on the national context.

Q: What heuristics are you using to know where you are? For example, if your aim is to ‘build credibility’, how do you know when you’ve ticked that box and are in a position to take the next step?

Rachel: It’s very difficult. In some places we already have credibility with the national institutions, so for example in Greece Vouliwatch have already had conversations, and feedback says they’ve been taken on board. That sort of thing helps you see that you’re making progress.

Q: Are there things we can do internationally to help national level organisations? Our connections are all in the UK, and they each have their own goals, constraints and focuses.

Rachel: it can be helpful to bring in the  international angle: for example the Council of Europe has an oversight group that looks at the laws of all countries that have ratified Tromsø. Even the fact that they exist at all sends a strong message.

It can be disheartening waiting for the moment to act. Your followers will get fatigued, so be strategic about when and how to use your voice. Channel your energies into activities that could have the most impact.

Q: Is there a regular schedule for updating the country’s policy ratings (the global RTI rankings) or does it depend on when you get the funding to do so?

Rachel: Yes, it is funding-dependent!

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Image: Tromsø by Harry Jaschhof

As this will be the last monthnotes of 2024 (because on New Years Eve we’ll be looking back at the past year and toasting to the wonderful strides we’ve all made in our work in 2024) we here at mySociety’s transparency team wanted to wish you all a happy holidays and a fantastic new year celebration. Let’s take a look at what November brought us!

 

FragDenStaat: won the right for digital media to be considered media in the courts! This is a huge step forward for a slightly archaic system that previously had only considered printed media to be “the press”

mySociety: are pushing forward with our support to marginalized communities and are starting some cohorts of groups using our projects service in early January. We’re also excited to be mentoring SPOON on their impact measurement work !

Access Info: are working in depth with MaDada and SPOON on their legal reform Projects, and helping NI work on their OGP action plan. We also just delivered a Legal Framework Reform Masterclass for the ATI network and are looking forward to sharing more about our work in this area in 2025. 

SPOON: are preparing for next year! We defined our focus for 2025: leaving the building. Going out into the woods getting to know our users, what they need and how we can help. One of the ways we will do this, is by launching a Woo-forum in January and proactively answer all questions we receive via that forum. This also means changing our workflow(s) from a ‘we know what you need’ to a ‘tell us what you need, we don’t know’ approach. Introducing ‘intakes’ and looking for other organisations and professionals to work together on facilitating the needs that come forwards from thos intakes.

Also we are happy to announce to be one of the few lucky ones to team up with mySociety on their Impact Measurement Mentorship starting in 2025!

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: sent approximately 2,500 public information requests to schools, courts, and county offices. We organized local meetings about transparency. Together with other organizations, we advocated for anti-SLAPP legal reforms in Poland and took a stance on amendments to the law on assemblies. 

Ma Dada: have been working on a call for individual donations from our community, and a grant proposal for tech work together with mySociety (around GDPR/search). Work is ongoing  on our FOI observatory. We also had a brief internal conversation around a law proposal to bring back a 50€ stamp fee on court appeals (which would include FOI court appeals).

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong has been educating journalism students about FOI and demonstrating the uses of the IPZ platform.

KiMitTud: started a campaign with hashtag #kozadatbesztof (articles and social media postst) covering the most interesting freedom of information request of each month in 2024. We published two short animations: what does public data means and how to make a FOI-request (full article covering the topic in Hungarian here).
Some legal challenges for FOI in Hungary: the government has stuffed new legislation into a bill that removes the Ministry of Agriculture’s obligation to publish contracts with the National Land Center.
One of our latest successful complaint to the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information: a state-owned company has finally sent the impact study for the port of Trieste – the only problem: most of the document’s contect is covered with black marks.

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: sadly didn’t win their funding pitch to google to look at the use of AI in parliaments, but they’ll still be exploring this topic in the future. 

AccessInfo Hong Kong: will be relaunching our website with a new portal and name in Jan 2025! We also have published a manual on how to use the Code on Access to Information in Hong Kong in English and Chinese. https://civicsight.org/access/accessinfo/

Abrimos Info: are continuing the fight for the access to information right on multiple fronts. The reforms are on the verge of being approved without significant modifications or meaningful debate.  We have signed this joint statement with more than 200 CSOs. https://articulo19.org/mexico-dejara-de-ser-un-referente-en-el-mundo-en-materia-transparencia-para-convertirse-en-uno-de-opacidad/

OpenUp ZA: are working with KiMitTud on the impact measuring mentorship

Other news: 

In the Civic Tech Field Guide, we’ve aggregated network-wide Access to Info impact measurement metrics Thanks to everyone who shared their stats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

mySociety wants to help you use FOI in a campaign or advocacy project

mySociety has the capacity to support a limited number of organisations working with marginalised populations in the UK. We’ll help you to make and analyse Freedom of Information (FOI) requests so you can use the data in your campaigning and advocacy. 

Sounds good? Please read on, then fill in this short questionnaire to tell us about your organisation, your project and any timelines you are working to. 

Please note: this offer is only open to organisations, and specifically those working with marginalised groups in the UK*. 

A little context

Last year, mySociety carried out research into the use of FOI to support social change for marginalised communities in the UK. 

That research informed a small number of free training seminars explaining different facets of FOI use. We’re now starting phase two of this project, aiming to provide dedicated support to ten organisations, helping them use FOI in a campaign or advocacy project between January and July 2025. 

What can FOI do for you?

If you’re new to FOI, you should know that it can be used to great effect in campaigning and advocacy, from gathering data to prove the need for your work, to uncovering corruption or maladministration. To find out more, browse our case studies or watch the seminars from phase one: 

During this project we’ll set you up on WhatDoTheyKnow Pro (if you don’t already have an account); we’ll give you advice and support on framing your FOI request, who to send it to, how to respond to requests for clarification or rejections, and if necessary, how to submit something for internal review.

For large-scale FOI investigations where you’d like to collaborate with other members of staff, we can also show you how to use our Projects software, which makes it super-easy to work as a team and extract datasets from FOI.

What will you get out of this?

Once the data starts coming in from your FOI requests, we’ll help you load them into our Projects tool so you can decide how best to analyse the data with your team.  You’ll end up with a spreadsheet from which you can draw conclusions to help shape your campaign or advocacy work. 

You’ll be working in a small cohort of 2-5 organisations, and we’ll keep you together as a group so you can share common problems and we can also see where each organisation might hit different hurdles.

There’s no charge for this service: all we’re asking is for you to attend calls with mySociety/your cohort to feed back to us how things are going, tell us what your pain points are and ask us lots and lots of questions about FOI! We’ll also want to write or record a case study about you for our reporting and communications teams. 

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* What is a marginalised community? For the purposes of this project, this refers to any group campaigning or advocating in the UK with or for:

• People who are disadvantaged by their social and/or economic background or circumstances
• People with Black, Asian or other Minority Ethnic heritage
• People living with disabilities and chronic illness 
• And, within these groups, particularly those with low digital literacy.

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Image: Christina @ wocintechchat.com

All of us working on Access to Information here at mySociety were extremely saddened to hear of the death of Helen Darbishire on October 18th. Helen was one of the key leaders of the Access to Information space, and her tireless enthusiasm and drive to improve transparency around the world – along with her warm and welcoming personality – will be sorely missed by us all. Please join us in sending best wishes to the Access Info Europe team during this difficult time and supporting Rachel and Carlos in their mission to build on the work Helen started. 

FragDenStaat: have been uncovering hidden tax havens in secret forest locations in the middle of Germany – held by the descendents of the founders of the ottoman empire; the kinds of stories that feel like they’re fiction but are actually fact!

mySociety: are working hard on our new round of AI experiments to detect misuse of WDTK, finishing up and submitting our year 2 report for the ATI network project and planning out the next couple of meetup events. We’ve also been getting campaign groups on board for a FOI support pipeline we’ll be running from January to July 2025 to go through the process of forming a request to analysing data. 

Access Info: have been liaising with MaDada and SPOON to finalise the legal framework projects they’ll be working on over the next 6 – 12 months.

SPOON: experimented for the first time sending in a legal opinion in a court case of  a citizen who had started a legal procedure after his FOI-request for  disclosure of a memo was dismissed. He had won in the first instance, but the municipality hired the most prominent government law firm to appeal the decision. The point of contention was the interpretation of an important provision in our FOI-act that had not previously  come before our highest court. The court allowed us to join in the hearing and answer questions. This way we could make for a level playing field and make sure the court heard all arguments on the side of the citizen. Compared to starting your own case from the beginning, it is more time effective and a real case from a citizen is more sympathetic. And you achieve the status of ‘expert’, which is good for your reputation. Judgement is expected  late November. 

Regarding our Alavetelli platform, we are in the process of coming to an agreement with the Ministry of Interior Affairs on our handling of the privacy of government officials.

Ma Dada: got a new grant to pimp up the website and reach out to civil society organisations and non-profits in France. We got started with work on this. We are also discussing how to approach GDPR in relation to public bodies.

ForSet: ForSet has been focused on upcoming parliamentary elections. Following ideation sessions and working groups from Civic Tech Summit hold in Tbilisi in August, we co-launched two civic tech platforms (https://daitove.learnworlds.com/ for educating and certifying volunteer election observers and https://damkvirvebeli.ge/ for coordinating work of 3000+ observers). Media news aggregation tool https://skhivi.com/ has been launched as well for assisting journalists in covering elections. We have continued Data Communication Fellowship programs, where 5 Georgian journalists produced in-depth data stories regarding the changes in elections system, predictions, and transparency. Although we don’t have an active grant for AskGov.ge, we have seen the increase of FOI requests (42) at the platform, concerning the transparency and open data for election related processes. 

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong has published a set of evidence-based recommendations for improved access to information in Croatia. The publication is available in English.

KiMitTud: have been investigating Hungarian think tank’s investments in the US political system

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: Vouliwatch published a set of recommendations for the improvement of the access to information legal framework in Greece (in Greek, soon in English). These recommendations have been sent to the Prime Minister, the competent Minister as well as to members of Parliament. The recommendations were accompanied by an open letter signed by 15 CSOs and investigative journalism orgs. We have so far held two meetings with MPs on this issue and hopefully by the end of the month/beginning of next we will be meeting with the Minister. In addition, October marked the beginning of our awareness raising campaign aimed at introducing the wider public, CSOs and journalists to the right to information. For the purpose of this campaign we created social media posters (1+ 2+3) and videos (1+2).

Abrimos Info: We have published a joint positioning with other organisations regarding the reform of the transparency institute (in Spanish)

The proposed constitutional reform seeks to abolish several autonomous and decentralised bodies, including the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection (INAI). This reform is set for debate by the LXVI Legislature.

The dissolution of INAI poses significant concerns regarding transparency and public access to information. The elimination of INAI could severely restrict citizens’ ability to monitor government activities, impacting civil society and journalists the most. Without INAI, the transparency necessary for democratic oversight and accountability in government operations could be significantly undermined.

OpenUp ZA: are getting ready to deliver us a workshop next week on Impact measurement and working on a mentorship programme with European organisations working in the Anti-Corruption space.

All at mySociety were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Helen Darbishire. We have lost a valued partner, a fellow advocate for transparency and a friend.

We were fortunate enough to work alongside Helen for many years in her role as founder and Executive Director of Access Info Europe, in which she both campaigned passionately for the right to information, and oversaw the launch of AskTheEU, an Alaveteli site enabling citizens to submit FOI requests to EU institutions.

Helen was an invaluable contributor to our AlaveteliCon events, always happy to share her deep knowledge and experience around Access to Information, and to argue the case for better, stronger transparency. mySociety team members variously describe her as ‘a force of nature’; adding ‘once met, never forgotten’, and highlighting that despite her passionate dedication to the right to information, she was also ‘never boring — great fun to spend time with socially’.

We all — but especially those within the Alaveteli community — will feel her loss; but her legacy is a strong one, and we have confidence in the AccessInfo team’s ability to uphold it.

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Images: Banner – Helen at AlaveteliCon in Oslo, 2019

Photo – The Alaveteli community in Madrid, where Helen helped us host AlaveteliCon in 2015.

Welcome to autumn, and as we have breezed past Right To Know day let’s take a look at what the Access to Information network have been up to this month.

FragDenStaat: released their most recent “redaction art” for Right to Know day on September 28th 2024, this piece comes from Saxony – an area which only ratified their access to information law in 2023, the last of the federal states to do so. 

mySociety: has been experimenting with AI in our Projects data analysis service, with mixed results, and kicking off our new round of support for marginalised groups in the UK. We’re also busy designing some exciting learning opportunities coming in October and November 2024!

Access Info: have a winner for their inaugural Impact Award! Lighthouse Reports won with their brilliant Suspicion Machines investigation and their leadership of the collaboration around this work. The other finalists were really strong contenders and worth checking out too!

SPOON: announced their collaboration with Access Info and their intent to work on important topics such as introducing Information Commissioners to the Netherlands system. 

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: On September 28-29, the 3rd Openness Fans’ Convention took place. 110 people from all over Poland took part in the two-day meeting. There were meetings with journalists, talks about technology, legal advice and a presentation of monitoring results conducted by graduates of the Watchdog School. On the evening of September 28, we also raised a toast to openness and FOI.

Ma Dada: Ma Dada held its General Assembly and welcomed new board members from a variety of backgrounds. We also ran training sessions for journalists and kept digging through data for our observatory.

ForSet: had a fantastic Datafest, and are now taking a well deserved breather to take stock and share insights.

Transparencia: After the belgian elections in june, we made lobbying towards the new regional government for stronger FOI regulation in walloon region

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong held its second annual School for Democracy for young politicians and activists. The programme covered a range of civic literacy topics, including new forms of democratic participation and digital tools which can be used for conducting public oversight (such as IPZ).

KiMitTud: have been investigating topics such as Lithium mining in Serbia and oversights in safety zones near factories in Göd. They’re also looking for developer support for 10 hours per month – so if you’re a Ruby whizz and want to support another partner in the network drop us a line!

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: In view of the government’s initiative to update article 5 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (regarding the right to access to public documents), Vouliwatch submitted a set of proposals during the public consultation process. The proposals submitted aimed at aligning the provisions of the article in question with the standards set by the Tromso Convention. In addition, Vouliwatch proceeded to contact MPs to inform them about its submission and ask for their support during the debate in parliament.

PPDC: We held the Freedom of Information (FOI) Ranking 2024, where we celebrated the strides made in promoting transparency and accountability in governance. This annual event showcases the achievements of public institutions in upholding the principles of openness and citizen participation.

Abrimos Info: has published “Millions of requests: the evolution of the massive use of access to information and the role of INAI”, a data analysis of the impact that the creation of the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) and the entire National Transparency System had on the right of access to information in Mexico. This op-ed is especially relevant given the possibility of reform or disappearance of these institutions. Read here (spanish)

CITAD: CITAD held its fifth Annual Kano Social Influencers Summit (KANSIS24) with the theme ‘Artificial Intelligence in Election and Governance’ which was attended by over 1000 people.

Other news: 

We’ve created a directory of the partners in this Community of Practice in the Civic Tech Field Guide. You can view it here. 

If you’d like to add your organisation or project, add a free contact form to your listing, or make any changes, please write to matt@civictech.guide.

Photo by Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash

mySociety’s Transparency team has developed a new tool, the Excel Analyser, which helps reduce the potential harms associated with accidental releases of large amounts of personal information.

The Excel Analyser scans spreadsheets before they are published on WhatDoTheyKnow, identifying metadata types that are often the cause of large data breaches, such as pivot cache data, hidden sheets, columns, rows, named ranges, and cached data from external links or data models.

If problematic metadata types and combinations are detected, the file is automatically prevented from being published on WhatDoTheyKnow.

This helps to reduce the risk that sensitive information is accidentally published online, and limits the harm that such releases can cause. The WhatDoTheyKnow team is alerted when a file has been blocked, which allows them to quickly delete any problematic material and inform the relevant authority that there has been a breach.

In cases where it’s unclear if a data breach has occurred, the authority is alerted that hidden data has been detected in their response, and given the opportunity to send a replacement file if necessary.

As well as Excel Analyser, the potentially problematic files are run through additional scripts that use Microsoft’s Presidio Analyzer tool to detect the presence of personally identifiable information within the hidden data itself. This enables the team to assess and address potential data breaches without needing to download or directly access the files themselves.

By communicating with authorities in this way, the ultimate hope is to reduce the number of data breaches involving Excel. In almost all cases, the relevant data could have been detected by authorities, and removed prior to release, using Excel’s built-in Document Inspector tool.

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Image: Simon Lee

 

A month has rolled by and look what amazing work the Global Access to Information Network members have achieved!

FragDenStaat: have been uncovering issues in the German medical system where patient symptoms are missed, hospitals are understaffed and the system is squeezed. 

mySociety: have been onboarding our first partners onto the Projects self- service to check it works, and writing user guides to help people navigate the new features. We’ve also added the Pro service to KiMitTud!

Access Info: have been working hard with both Arthro5a and VreauInfo, working on project plans with MaDada and SPOON alongside launching a campaign with Article 19 in Europe on recommendations for implementation of reg 1049 for transparency in Europe. They’re also still accepting nominations for their transparency Impact Award until September 9th 

Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: are busy organising an event on Transparency to link with International Right to Know day on September 28th and also protesting against dangerous border policies which risk migrant lives when crossing into Poland. 

MaDada: Ma Dada has been planning their project with AccessInfo, and crunching data for their upcoming observatory of access to documents.

ForSet: are super busy organising DataFest in Tbilisi, Georgia which is happening 19-21 September 2024. They’d love to see any familiar faces from the network if anyone is going along!

ImamoPravoZnati: Gong has been collecting data on the implementation of civic education in Croatian schools (including forms and level at which it is being implemented, number of pupils involved and number of teachers trained to implement it) by filing requests to local and regional government units, in hopes of mapping the regional disbalances and other issues pertaining to the current policy framework for formal civic education.

KiMitTud: have been filing requests to the Sovereignty Protection Office, looking into how they’d requested authorities to collect data on an ongoing basis which went beyond their remit.  

DostupDoPravda: have been investigating everything from the denial of access to state secrets to complaints to the Human Rights Commissioner over ATI violations. 

Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: are continuing their campaign work and also launching a new site monitoring the Greek Government commitments to marine conservation and their progress towards those commitments. 

Plaza Cívica: has been making strides in improving public transport in Lima and Callao. We took on the challenge of mapping and updating the data for 521 public transport routes, which was no easy task given the messy and outdated information we had to work with. This initiative required extensive public information requests from various government agencies and collaboration with private entities. Now, anyone in the city can use Google Maps to find the best routes for their commute. This project is just one way we use open data to make everyday life easier and push for more transparency and civic engagement.

Datos Concepción: are working with local authorities in Entre Ríos (Argentina) to improve the access to info law (2017) , focused on modifying the application process into the local government. Also are working on the 5th annual plan of Argentina on OGP related to the federal programme. 

PPDC:  we are currently conducting both National and Sub-national Freedom of Information (FOI) rankings in Nigeria, covering 250 MDAs at the national level and 152 MDAs across 3 states (Adamawa, Ekiti, Kaduna). Additionally, we’re actively working on expanding community engagement to various sub-nationals, aiming to enhance their procurement processes for greater transparency and accountability. Furthermore, we’re excited to be extending our reach to 2 additional states (Oyo and Anambra), empowering CSOs and citizens with the skills and knowledge needed to effectively utilize the FOI Act to hold the government accountable.

AccessInfo Hong Kong: We are about to launch a manual on www.civicsight.org in English and Cantonese on how to use the AccessInfo platform to both make requests but also to appeal to the Ombudsman when requests are either not responded to in full or at all by the Hong Kong Government.

Article 19 Eastern Africa: Ongoing assessment of Kenya’s status of implementation of the Access to Information Act. Launch of new Strategic Plan for Eastern Africa 2024-2027 entitled “Stronger for Expression’ with ATI and Information Integrity as part of key strategic pillars. Launch of annual report- Eastern Africa: A year of repression and resistance.

Abrimos Info: There is a constitutional reform on “organic simplification” in México already approved in commission in the lower chamber, about to remove the autonomy of INAI (the national authority in access to information). There is great alarm about the future of the transparency system in the whole ecosystem. You can read more in spanish: INAI’s reaction and journalistic analysis.

Civic Data Lab: Please find some of our key updates here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/strengthening-our-commitment-towards-resilientindia-civicdatalab-2zkgc/ 

OpenUp ZA: Through our Data Desk – supported by the Africa Data Hub – we have been providing support to African journalists to interpret and visualise data (and FOI record data). We will be expanding the Data Desk to provide data sourcing, analysis and visualisation services to South Africa’s anti-corruption civil society community, from September. We have also been developing a research framework to try and unpack success criteria from historical FOI data to help automate the generation of successful FOI requests.

Other news: In Europe the IJ4EU have launched 2 cross border funds which might be of interest to sites working with journalists – one for teams, and one for freelancers; you can read more here and here.

Photo by Fons Heijnsbroek on Unsplash