Freedom of information laws allow access by the general public to data held by national governments and, where applicable, by state and local governments. The emergence of freedom of information legislation was a response to increasing dissatisfaction with the secrecy surrounding government policy development and decision making. In recent years Access to Information Act has also been used. They establish a "right-to-know" legal process by which requests may be made for government-held information, to be received freely or at minimal cost, barring standard exceptions. Also variously referred to as open records, or sunshine laws, governments are typically bound by a duty to publish and promote openness. In many countries there are constitutional guarantees for the right of access to information, but these are usually unused if specific support legislation does not exist. Additionally, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 has a target to ensure public access to information and the protection of fundamental freedoms as a means to ensure accountable, inclusive and just institutions.
The role of information commissioner differs from nation to nation. Most commonly it is a title given to a government regulator in the fields of freedom of information and the protection of personal data in the widest sense. The office often functions as a specialist ombudsman service.
Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data privacy or data protection.
The Federal Department of Finance is one of the seven departments of the Swiss federal government. The department is headquartered in Bern and headed by a member of the Swiss Federal Council, Switzerland's finance minister. Initially, in 1848, the department was called "Department of Finance", then, from 1873 "Department of Finance and Customs", until it received its present designation in 1978.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It is the independent regulatory office dealing with the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 across the UK; and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and, to a limited extent, in Scotland.
A privacy policy is a statement or legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identify an individual, not limited to the person's name, address, date of birth, marital status, contact information, ID issue, and expiry date, financial records, credit information, medical history, where one travels, and intentions to acquire goods and services. In the case of a business, it is often a statement that declares a party's policy on how it collects, stores, and releases personal information it collects. It informs the client what specific information is collected, and whether it is kept confidential, shared with partners, or sold to other firms or enterprises. Privacy policies typically represent a broader, more generalized treatment, as opposed to data use statements, which tend to be more detailed and specific.
Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person.
Information privacy, data privacy or data protection laws provide a legal framework on how to obtain, use and store data of natural persons. The various laws around the world describe the rights of natural persons to control who is using its data. This includes usually the right to get details on which data is stored, for what purpose and to request the deletion in case the purpose is not given anymore.
The International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles or Safe Harbour Privacy Principles were principles developed between 1998 and 2000 in order to prevent private organizations within the European Union or United States which store customer data from accidentally disclosing or losing personal information. They were overturned on October 6, 2015 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which enabled some US companies to comply with privacy laws protecting European Union and Swiss citizens. US companies storing customer data could self-certify that they adhered to 7 principles, to comply with the EU Data Protection Directive and with Swiss requirements. The US Department of Commerce developed privacy frameworks in conjunction with both the European Union and the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner of Switzerland.
The Access to Information Act or Information Act is a Canadian Act providing the right of access to information under the control of a federal government institution. As of 2020, the Act allowed "people who pay $5 to request an array of federal files". Paragraph 2. (1) of the Act ("Purpose") declares that government information should be available to the public, but with necessary exceptions to the right of access that should be limited and specific, and that decisions on the disclosure of government information should be reviewed independently of government. Later paragraphs assign responsibility for this review to an Information Commissioner, who reports directly to parliament rather than the government in power. However, the Act provides the commissioner the power only to recommend rather than compel the release of requested information that the commissioner judges to be not subject to any exception specified in the Act.
Privacy law is the body of law that deals with the regulating, storing, and using of personally identifiable information, personal healthcare information, and financial information of individuals, which can be collected by governments, public or private organisations, or other individuals. It also applies in the commercial sector to things like trade secrets and the liability that directors, officers, and employees have when handing sensitive information.
The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario was established as an officer of the Legislature by Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which came into effect on January 1, 1988. The current commissioner is Patricia Kosseim.
The federal administration of Switzerland is the ensemble of agencies that constitute, together with the Swiss Federal Council, the executive branch of the Swiss federal authorities. The administration is charged with executing federal law and preparing draft laws and policy for the Federal Council and the Federal Assembly.
The Federal Chancellery of Switzerland is a department-level agency of the federal administration of Switzerland. It is the staff organisation of the federal government, the Federal Council. Since 2016, it has been headed by Federal Chancellor Walter Thurnherr of the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland.
Canadian privacy law is derived from the common law, statutes of the Parliament of Canada and the various provincial legislatures, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Perhaps ironically, Canada's legal conceptualization of privacy, along with most modern legal Western conceptions of privacy, can be traced back to Warren and Brandeis’s "The Right to Privacy" published in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, Holvast states "Almost all authors on privacy start the discussion with the famous article 'The Right to Privacy' of Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis".
The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, referring to either a person or the agency they lead, is tasked with supervising data protection as well as acting in an ombudsman function in freedom of information. The latter was introduced with the German Freedom of Information Act on 1 January 2006. In 2016, it became an independent federal agency in accordance with EU regulations.
There is no absolute right to privacy in Australian law and there is no clearly recognised tort of invasion of privacy or similar remedy available to people who feel their privacy has been violated. Privacy is, however, affected and protected in limited ways by common law in Australia and a range of federal, state and territorial laws, as well as administrative arrangements.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), known until 2010 as the Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner is an independent Australian Government agency, acting as the national data protection authority for Australia, established under the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010, headed by the Australian Information Commissioner.
There are several national data protection authorities across the world, tasked with protecting information privacy. In the European Union and the EFTA member countries, their status was formalized by the Data Protection Directive and they were involved in the Madrid Resolution.
The environmental movement in Switzerland is represented by a wide range of associations.
