Freedom of information requests
Everyone has the right to know how governments use algorithms to make decisions about them. PublicAlgo helps you exercise that right across the EU, whether a system is already in our catalogue or you only suspect one exists.
Coming soon: in developmentPlease provide:
Deadline trackedThe response window is set by the country's law.
How it will work
We help you draft a freedom-of-information request against the law that applies in its country, track the deadline, and publish the response as evidence anyone can use.
Find or ask about a system
Start from any algorithmic or AI system already in our catalogue — the ones public bodies use to score, rank, flag or decide. Don't see the one you're worried about? You can still ask: tell us the body and what it seems to be doing, and we'll frame a request that asks whether such a system exists and how it works.
Draft the request
We draft your freedom-of-information request with AI, so you don't need to know the legal wording. It names the specific system (or the decision you're asking about), the records you want — documentation, impact assessments, training data, audits — and the exact legal basis, ready for you to review and adjust before anything is sent.
Send it off
When you're happy with it, the request goes to the responsible public body under the access-to-information law that applies in its country. PublicAlgo selects the right legal regime for you — the same request works whether the body sits in Germany, France or any other covered country.
Track the deadline
Every country gives authorities a statutory window to respond. We log that deadline the moment the request is sent and count down against it — so if a body runs late or goes silent, it's on the record, not quietly forgotten.
Get the response
When the body replies, you hear from us straight away. The answer — documents, a partial release, or a refusal — is captured and logged against your original request, so the full exchange stays in one place.
Published as evidence
Every request and the response it gets are published in full on the system's page. One person's question becomes a public record of how a government uses an algorithm — evidence the next journalist, researcher or citizen can build on instead of starting from scratch.
Tell me when it opens
FOI requests are in development. Leave your email and we will write to you once, when they open.