Civic access

Civic access is the right of all citizens to request documents, information or data that public authorities have failed to publish, despite being obliged to do so.

Legislative Decree no. 33 of 14 March 2013 introduced the institution of civic access, described in Article 5, i.e. the right to know, use and reuse (under the conditions specified by the law) data, documents and “public” information subject to “mandatory publication”. This institution is different and a further measure from the right of access to administrative records and documents covered by Law No. 241 of 1990. Unlike the latter, it does not require a request from a qualified stakeholder but consists in freely asking and obtaining the provision and publication of records, documents and information held by administrations that have not been published on their institutional websites, for various reasons, despite being subject to mandatory publication.

See the information sheet for how to exercise this right.