[Opengenalliance] Opengenalliance Digest, Vol 32, Issue 2

[Asparagirl]

Ben wrote:
> Cool. Any views on whether the same tactic would work in the UK?

I don't see why not. Most countries have Freedom of Information laws,
it's just a matter of first confirming whether or not the records you
want are covered by them. If they're government records (tax, census,
etc.) and/or held in a government repository (archive, agency, etc.)
they're often fair game. Basically, if tax money touched them in any
way.

Sometimes FOI laws explicitly don't cover certain types of records;
for example, in Maryland educational records (including student
records) are exempt, but in New York they're not.  And some FOI laws
don't cover certain branches of local government; for example, the
judiciary in New York State isn't covered, which unfortunately limits
the way I can get access to naturalizations or name changes or other
genealogically-useful records that were handled in the local court
system, but in Maryland the judiciary is covered.

Here's a video of my one-hour talk at the Seattle IAJGS conference
this past August:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q43lbZ6x8HU

Yes, it's very US-specific, but the concepts should apply to other
countries, many of which (I'm told) have stronger and better laws than
the US does.

I would check out FOIAdvocates, which is a worldwide consortium that
also runs a mailing list:
https://foiadvocates.net/

I'm on their listserve and they have people all over the globe
represented and talking about the situations in their countries.

And if you want a laugh at how stubborn these government agencies can
be, here's my latest, and ongoing, fight:
http://kcur.org/post/missouri-sunshine-law-request-yields-15-million-tab-then-5000-then-outright-refusal#stream/0


- Brooke Schreier Ganz