What is the difference between access and re-use?
A. Access, under Freedom of Information legislation (FOI) is all about obtaining the information. Often individuals or companies want the information for their own use. Re-use involves making copies, publishing the information and perhaps commercially exploiting it. Re-use is therefore very closely linked to copyright and licensing. For this reason, public sector organisations state in responding to FOI requests that the supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give an automatic right to re-use those documents.
