A federal right of access since 2006
Germany's Informationsfreiheitsgesetz, usually shortened to IFG, gives everyone a legal claim to official information held by the federal administration. The Act came into force in 2006, making Germany a relative latecomer among European democracies; several neighbouring countries had adopted access laws decades earlier. Before the IFG, a person asking a federal ministry for a file generally needed to show a specific legal interest in it. The Act reversed that logic: access is the rule, and refusal is the exception that must be justified.
The right is deliberately broad in one respect. It attaches to official information rather than only to formal documents, and it belongs to anyone. Requesters do not have to be German citizens or residents, do not need to give reasons, and do not have to demonstrate any interest in the material.
Which bodies are covered
The IFG binds the authorities of the federal government: ministries, federal offices and subordinate agencies. Other federal bodies are covered insofar as they carry out public administrative tasks, and a private entity can fall within the Act where an authority relies on it to perform such tasks. The federal intelligence services sit outside the regime, and material touching on security interests is heavily shielded. Because the Act is federal law, it says nothing about the far larger world of Land ministries, municipalities, schools or local police; those are a matter for each Land.
Exceptions and third-party protection
Access can be refused to protect defined public interests, including international relations, military and security matters, ongoing court proceedings and the fiscal interests of the federation. A further exception protects the internal deliberative process while a decision is still being prepared. Personal data may only be released after weighing the requester's interest in the information against the data subject's protected interests, and trade or business secrets are in principle released only with the consent of the company concerned. Authorities are expected to decide on a request promptly, as a rule within one month, and to grant partial access where only parts of a record are exempt.
Fees
Simple requests, such as a short answer or inspection of a few pages, are handled free of charge. For more elaborate processing the authority may charge fees and expenses under a dedicated fee schedule, but the law instructs authorities to set fees so that they do not deter people from exercising the right of access. Requesters can ask for an estimate before a potentially expensive request is processed.
The Federal Commissioner
Oversight rests with the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, an existing data-protection office that received a second mandate when the IFG took effect. Anyone who considers that their right under the Act has been violated may call on the Federal Commissioner, who can investigate, mediate and issue recommendations, though not overturn an authority's decision. Formal remedies run separately: an administrative objection to the authority itself, followed by an action before the administrative courts.
The Länder patchwork
Below the federal level, Germany's sixteen Länder each legislate for their own administrations, and the results diverge sharply. Brandenburg adopted the country's first access law in 1998, several years before the federal Act, and Berlin and other Länder followed. Hamburg moved furthest in 2012 with a Transparency Act that obliges authorities to publish contracts, expert reports and other records proactively in an online register rather than waiting for requests. At the other end of the spectrum, a small number of Länder went for many years without any general access statute, leaving their residents with weaker rights than a requester writing to a federal ministry. Anyone seeking documents in Germany therefore has to check first which level of government holds the file.
Adjacent routes
The IFG is not the only door. Environmental information held by German authorities falls under the separate Umweltinformationsgesetz, which implements EU rules and is in several respects more generous. Documents held by EU institutions are governed by the EU's own access regime; the guide on how to use European freedom of information rules explains that route. Neighbouring Switzerland brought its federal transparency law into force in the same year as the IFG; the country note on Switzerland describes its distinctive mediation model.