Who We Are

Freedom of Information Foundation
(Institute for Information Freedom Development)

St.-Petersburg, Russia

Full name: Foundation “Institute for Information Freedom Development”
(up to April 2012 – Foundation for the Support of Information Freedom Initiatives)

Brief name: Freedom of Information Foundation

Status: Non-governmental, non-profit organization

Official Organizational Form: Foundation

Objective: Study, analysis, and solution search for the problem of access for individuals and organizations to socially significant information. We pay special attention to defending right to access to information on activities of government bodies and bodies of local self-government.

We believe that, in the modern world, government bodies’ official websites are becoming the main source of full, actual, and reliable information on activities of those bodies. Therefore, the “governmental power” sector of the virtual space should be stimulated for further development.

We expect the following results for our work:

• increasing legal and social responsibility of government bodies for socially significant information they provide;
• reduction of corruption and of legal nihilism; and,
• realization by citizens of real effect from implementation of their right to information access, as well as of connection between information accessibility and life quality.

Our Projects:

- Research
Monitoring contents of government bodies’ official websites is one of major directions for the Foundation’s activity. Each year, its experts study contents of each official website evaluating presence, fullness, reliability, and actuality of the information placed by it. Also they study what information government bodies refuse to place at their websites due to any reasons.

At the end of each year, informational openness ratings are formed for: federal executive government bodies of the Russian Federation; legislative government bodies of the Russian Federation subjects; executive government bodies of the Russian Federation subjects, and also for official websites plasing information on state procurements. All information on our research is published at the Foundation’s website.

The research project includes developing advice for each official website analyzed: a package of the Monitoring materials together with specific proposals how to improve quality of official website is sent to each government body.

- Legal
The Foundation is also to litigate and to initiate court cases where our lawyers defend the right to free access to governmental informational resources. Legal procedure implementation helps to reach real positive changes in the field of socially significant information access.

At initial stage of the Foundation’s work, our staff, by means of prolonged correspondence and judicial procedures, made government bodies to launch official websites and to update their contents. Today, our lawyers also seek for open access to various governmental databases, lists, and registers.

The results are covered by the Foundation’s website as well as by various federal and regional mass media.

- Public Outreach
The Foundation experts regularly hold various informational events – press conferences, workshops, projects for students. etc. – aimed to stimulate the general public to act in order to implement and to defend their rights to information access.

This is surely not an exhaustive list of our activities and projects. We achieve real positive changes in Russia and look for the future optimistically.