‘Right to information’ (RTI), ‘access to information’ (ATI) or ‘freedom of information’ (FOI) has been adopted by countries around the world, as a manifestation of the rights of citizens to freedom of opinion and expression and a prerequisite for human rights. In 1948, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 stated the fundamental ‘right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights declared that ‘…access to information is inextricably tied to freedom of expression.’ The right to information has frequently been linked to trust in public discourse and to enabling accountable and open government. Access to information establishes a right for individuals to seek information held by public authorities, often in a manner defined by the law, and generally subject to exemptions for such things as national security, defence, international relations, police investigations and privacy. Recordkeeping professionals in corporate and public organisations provide access to records for internal business use to support current activities, as well as ensuring access to records needed over the longer term for the study of cultural heritage and the history of communities and families. In addition, in the accountability domain, records can be used to hold individuals, officials and corporations to account, both internally and externally. Providing access to reliable records is commonly cited as a necessary prerequisite for accountability, transparency, and good governance. Transparency International (Pope, 2003) asserted that ‘when we campaign for greater access to information we must at the same time campaign for improved records management. There seems little point in having access to information that is chaotic and unreliable’. Archives have been called ‘arsenals of democratic accountability’ (Eastwood, 1993; Iacovino, 2010) and this chapter will examine the recordkeeping role in providing access to records so that individuals can exercise their ‘right to information’. It will consider four different aspects of access to information: national archives and records legislation; secrecy and privacy; responsive release of information by governments under freedom of information; and proactive release of information under open government policies. It will reflect upon whether these aspects together provide citizens with ‘a right to information’ and therefore whether such a right can be said to exist in practice. Unofficial routes to information access, such as whistleblowing or unauthorised disclosure by activists, will not be covered in this chapter
