EU borders agency must improve information access arrangements following complaint by Drone Wars UK

The European Ombudsman has ruled that the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, should reform its access to information arrangements following complaints about difficulties in obtaining information made by Drone Wars UK and German open government platform FragDenStaat.

The Ombudsman’s rulingfollows a two year investigation which examined how Frontex deals with requests for public access to documents, and particularly requests submitted by email and through civil society access to information websites such as FragDenStaat and AskTheUK.org. At present Frontex only accepts communications through its own difficult-to-use communication portal and refuses to communicate by e-mail or third party information access websites – a complicated and unnecessary hurdle for anyone seeking information about the organisation.