Access to Official Documents Will Be Free from November
Published: Friday, Sep 29th 2023, 11:13
Updated At: Friday, Oct 13th 2023, 14:12
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The Swiss Federal Council has decided to make access to official documents of the federal administration free of charge from November 2023. Fees will only be charged if the processing of an access request takes more than eight working hours. This is referred to as a "paradigm shift" by the Federal Council. Currently, citizens have to pay a fee to access official documents. In the future, this will only be the case if the processing of an access request takes more than eight working hours. According to the Federal Data Protection and Public Access Officer, in 2022 only 29 out of 1180 processed access requests were subject to fees. Since 2006, anyone can request access to official documents under the Public Access Act without having to prove a special interest.
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