Law on Access to Public Information Now Regulated

Decree 780/2024, published in the Official Gazette on September 2, 2024, regulated Law  27275 of Access to Public Information; clarified the scope of its articles 1, 3, 4, 8, 24, 31, and 32; and amended Decree 206/2017.

Among the main amendments, the Decree establishes that when the reporting entity that must provide the information or the person requesting it violates the principle of good faith, this will be considered an abusive exercise of rights. In other words, the parties must act in good faith when providing the information (e.g., providing truthful information) or when requesting it (e.g., not filing repeated requests once an exhaustive response has been provided). In this way, the courts will have to seek the reinstatement of the previous state of affairs and may fix compensation for the abusive exercise of rights.

In addition, the definition of "Public Information" is regulated to clarify its scope: "public information is not understood to be that which has data of a private nature that were generated, obtained, transformed, controlled or guarded by private individuals or legal entities or due to the absence of a compromised public interest."

Regarding the standing to sue, the Law establishes that the petitioner of information cannot be required:

1. grounds for the request,
2. accreditation of subjective right or legitimate interest,
3. legal representation.

The new regulation clarifies the formal requirements that the applicant must comply with when submitting a request for access to public information. If the applicant is a natural person, they must provide their name and surname, ID number, address, and email. Legal entities, on the other hand, must provide the company name, tax ID number, and identify its legal representative, attaching the corresponding legalized Power of Attorney.

Finally, the Decree determines that the obligated subjects may not be exempted from providing information including personal data, provided that the data subject has consented to its disclosure, or when the data is closely related to the competences of public officials.