Forum Informationsfreiheit

Description

Forum Informationsfreiheit (FOI) describes itself as Austria’s leading NGO for citizens’ rights to information. It is based in Vienna, and is registered as an association. Its founders each ran into the barrier of official secrecy in their own fields of work. They joined together to establish a genuine right to information in Austria.

The organization ran its first campaign for a transparency law, Transparenzgesetz, in 2013. The effort was supported by lawyers, journalists and academics. It is currently active on a related project it calls IFG neu, coordinating work on Austria’s freedom of information legislation.

The organization is led by a board, or Vorstand, that includes members and advisors with backgrounds in transparency and anti-corruption work, data protection, investigative journalism, and access-to-information law within EU institutions. Its chairman also leads a Vienna-based global civil society umbrella organization that represents anti-corruption NGOs from around the world at the United Nations. He previously worked for the watchdog organization Transparency International Georgia.

An advisory board that helped launch the 2013 campaign included a political scientist specializing in party financing and corruption, and a former head of Austria’s anti-corruption prosecutor’s office.