Freedom of information

Your rights

The Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) gives any person the right to:

access copies of documents (except exempt documents) we hold
ask for information we hold about you to be changed or annotated if it is incomplete, out of date, incorrect or misleading, and
seek a review of our decision not to allow you access to a document or not to amend your personal record.

You can ask to see any document that we hold. We can refuse access to some documents, or parts of documents that are exempt. Exempt documents may include those relating to national security, law enforcement methodology or investigations, documents containing material obtained in confidence and Cabinet documents, or other matters set out in the FOI Act.

Documents available outside the FOI Act

You can get certain information, including personal information we hold about you, without following a formal process under the FOI Act.

Requests relating to accident records, burglaries, thefts, stolen vehicles and criminal damage should be forwarded to the Accident Records Team.
Those relating to assault, sexual assault, personal injury, family violence, neighbourhood disputes and child welfare should be forwarded to the Information Access Team.
Extracts from AFP Personnel Records can be obtained by completing the relevant Information Release forms
You should also check the information we have published under the Information Publication Scheme and FOI disclosure log to see if what you are seeking is already available.

How to make a request

Your request must:

be in writing
state that the request is an application for the purposes of the FOI Act
provide information about the document(s) to assist us to process your request
provide an address for reply.

You can use the AFP FOI request form (PDF, 350KB) and send your request to the FOI Contact officer:

By post:
Freedom of Information
Australian Federal Police
GPO Box 401
Canberra ACT 2601

By email: foi@afp.gov.au

If you ask a third party to make an FOI request on your behalf, you need to provide a specific, written authority to send copies of documents to you, care of that person, or to allow that person to inspect copies of documents containing information about you.

If you require assistance with your request, please contact the FOI Contact Officer by email at foi@afp.gov.au.

Fees and charges

There is no application fee for an FOI request.

There are no processing charges for requests for access to documents containing only personal information about you. However, processing charges may apply to other requests. The most common charges are:

Activity item	Charge
Search and retrieval: time we spend searching for or retrieving a document	$15.00 per hour
Decision making: time we spend in deciding to grant or refuse a request, including examining documents, consulting with other parties and making deletions	First five hours: Nil Subsequent hours: $20.00 per hour
Transcript: preparing a transcript from a sound recording, shorthand or similar medium	$4.40 per page of transcript
Photocopy	$0.10 per page
Inspection: supervision by an agency officer of your inspection of documents or hearing or viewing an audio visual recording at our premises	$6.25 per half our or part thereof
Delivery: posting or delivering a copy of a document at your request	Cost of postage or delivery

What you can expect from us

We will tell you within 14 days that we have received your request. We will also give you an estimate of the charges that apply to your request. We will give you our decision within 30 days unless that time has been extended. If a document contains information about a third party, we will need to consult them and may need to extend the time to give you our decision by another 30 days. We may also seek your agreement to extend the time by up to 30 days if your request is complex.

As the AFP focuses its efforts on managing the impact of COVID-19 on its critical operations, our ability to process requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) may be affected or not delivered within expected timeframes. We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience during this period. Should this occur we will contact you as soon as practicable, and seek to extend processing timeframes in accordance with the FOI Act.

If you disagree with our decision

When we have made a decision about your FOI request, we will send you a letter explaining our decision and your review and appeal rights.
You can ask for the following decisions to be reviewed:

if we refuse to give you access to all or part of a document or if we defer giving you access
if we impose a charge
if we refuse to change or annotate information about you that you claim is incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.

A third party who disagrees with our decision to give you documents that contain information about them can also ask for our decision to be reviewed.

Internal review

You can request in writing that we reconsider our decision through an internal review. An internal review will be conducted by another officer in our agency. We will advise you of our new decision within 30 days of receiving your request.

Information Commissioner review

You can ask the Australian Information Commissioner to review our original decision or our decision on internal review within 60 days of the date of decision (or 30 days after you are notified if you are an affected third party). The Information Commissioner can affirm or vary the decision or substitute a new decision. The Information Commissioner may decide not to conduct a review in certain circumstances. More information is available at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) website.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your request, you can complain to the Australian Information Commissioner who may investigate our actions. More information is available on the OAIC's website. The Commonwealth Ombudsman can also investigate complaints about our actions. However, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner will consult to avoid the same matter being investigated twice.