Answer all your questions about university entry — with Freedom of Information
Every year from around April to September, we see an uptick on people sharing links to our Freedom of Information site, WhatDoTheyKnow on Reddit forums. The reason? It’s the peak time for anxieties...
View ArticleTrust the evidence… especially when you obtain it through FOI
Many of us may have wanted to put the Covid pandemic out of our minds once it passed — but those with more medical and scientific understanding would be justified in exploring a little more deeply into...
View ArticleBuried with Michael Sheen: how FOI helped uncover a toxic waste scandal
Are you one of the many who has watched the BBC’s two-parter Buried with Michael Sheen? If so, you may have experienced increasing levels of outrage as the actor helps to uncover the scandalous dumping...
View ArticleThe ICO is changing: it’s an ideal time to demand better
Governing Freedom of Information in the UK Tl;dr: the governance model of the ICO is changing and FOI isn’t well-represented in their new strategy. Here is how it could be made better. Freedom of...
View ArticleThe ICO brings increased transparency around sewage discharge
The EIR is a similar set of rights to those we have under Freedom of Information, but specifically give access to environmental information held by public authorities. Those who remember reading about...
View ArticleWhat makes Freedom of Information work in practice? Reflections from ATI Day...
This week I travelled to The Hague to take part in ATI Day 2026, organised by our friends SPOON and hosted by the Dutch Advisory Board on Public Access and Information Management (ACOI). We heard from...
View ArticleFOI Network 3: hearing from information officers
For the the third in our series of discovery workshops, we invited people working with FOI in public authorities to discuss how a network might support them — and we had more than 50 attendees joining...
View ArticleFOI Network: what we discovered in workshop 2
We continue with exploratory work that will help shape what the FOI Network will become, and how it will best serve specific types of those who use Freedom Of Information. Last week, in our second...
View ArticleFOI Network: how can we strengthen access to information?
The FOI Network is an informal coalition of civil society organisations, journalists and academics with an interest in Freedom of Information, convened by mySociety and State of the Future. Last week,...
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FOI Fest 2026
Last Thursday, a diverse set of people with a common interest came together at Birkbeck College in London for FOI Fest — a one day conference examining the successes, challenges and future of the...
View ArticleWhen you have a big Freedom of Information project, many hands make light work
WhatDoTheyKnow Pro, our Freedom of Information service for users such as journalists, researchers and campaigners, now comes with Projects bundled in at no extra cost. That means that, as well as...
View ArticleWhat we’ve learned about building datasets with FOI
At the beginning of the year, we set ourselves an ambitious goal: to help a group of small organisations working with marginalised communities to run Freedom of Information–based campaigns using...
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We prototyped a data hub for the VAWG sector, and it’s already raising...
Around the world today, organisations and communities are recognising the 26th International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This is a moment to reflect on one of the most prevalent...
View ArticleWhat can we learn from a clock that’s stopped?
Do you live somewhere that boasts a magnificent municipal clock — a timepiece that anyone passing by can look up to, and check that they’re nicely on time for their next appointment? A vast clockface...
View ArticleOur transparency rules need to adapt to the rise of AI
The government is making a significant investment into AI in public services, and systems are changing apace. AI is increasingly being deployed in every department of government, both national and...
View ArticlePlus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Mayoral expenses are a big topic in France just now, in a moment that’s reminiscent of our own MPs’ expenses scandal back in 2009. Chandeliers, luxury TVs and a duck house The UK’s Freedom of...
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Can better data can help end violence against women and girls?
This year, we’ve been working with the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW). We wanted to see whether we could replicate a successful model that we’ve already established in our work with The...
View ArticlePutting transparency to the test: evaluating FOI in practice
In our latest online webinar, we convened three experts to tell us about how Freedom of Information works in practice – in other words, how does the law work when it comes into contact with the real...
View ArticleUsing FOI for a cross-border investigation into immigrant detention
Did you know that Home Office data doesn’t include the reason that individuals have been taken to immigrant detention centres? Or that the UK is the only country in Europe with no limit on how long...
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How FOI feeds into public conversation
Often, responses published on our Freedom of Information site WhatDoTheyKnow result in newspaper stories, or feed into campaigns or research. When this happens with one of your own requests, you can...
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