Freedom of Information
Also known as FOI. A requirement in law (e.g. the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in the UK or the Right to Information Act 2005 in India) for public bodies to provide data held by them to citizens on request, unless a specific exemption applies, e.g. the data is confidential. The fact that information must be supplied under FoI laws does not in general make it open data, as it is not distributed, may not be available under an open licence, etc.