FOIA vs fake news (i.e. the importance of accessing documents for journalism).

The law providing for the right to know all documents and data in the hands of the public administration and state-controlled companies has been in force for some months in Italy. A Copernican Revolution in a country in which a generalized check on the actions of the public administration has been forbidden until now.

The “Italian FOIA” was introduced by the Legislative Decree No. 97/2016 and represents a tremendously powerful tool for journalists (who, in other countries, have been using this tool in their work for decades). The right to access is even more important with regard to fact-checking and/or verifying the truthfulness of data and information.

During this session, guidelines will be provided for the use of the right to the generalized access to data and documents of the public administration and indications on documents and data removed from such access. It will also be demonstrated how to materially set up a request, and what the remedies are in case of silence or a negative answer from the public administration.

Organized in cooperation with the Chairs of “Legal Data Processing”, “Advanced Legal Data Processing” and the specialization courses in “Digital Investigations” and “Data Protection” of the University of Milan (Prof. Giovanni Ziccardi – Prof. Pierluigi Perri).

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