Comparison of national archive access laws

Different countries have varying laws regulating access to material contained in their national archives. In some cases, archival access may be governed by the same regulations as those addressing access to information held by governments (so-called freedom of information laws). However, in the majority of countries it is the case that once a public or government record, file or document has been archived, separate laws regulate the public's right to access this information. Countries differ in the length of time that needs to have elapsed for archived records, files or other information to be able to be accessed by members of the public (this is known as the archival retention period). Some countries may have different archived information retention periods for different types of archived data or files. Some country's laws allow members of the public to request access despite files remaining in the archival retention period, though there are differences in the required procedure to do so. The following table compares the laws governing access to information contained in national archives.

References

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