By Bunmi Yekini
An updated global map of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws compiled by David Banisar, a leading FOI expert and Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, shows that access-to-information protections now cover the vast majority of the world, a milestone for transparency advocates, even as important gaps persist.
Banisar’s synthesis finds 132 countries, roughly 68% of United Nations member states, now have comprehensive Freedom of Information or Right to Information laws on their books. Another six countries have adopted weaker, regulation-based regimes that fall short of full statutory guarantees. In addition, 26 non-UN self-governing jurisdictions, including Kosovo, Taiwan, Bermuda and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have enacted laws or regulations providing public access to government-held information. Taken together, these jurisdictions account for about 92% of the world’s population living under some form of FOI or access-to-information regime.
For transparency campaigners and journalists, the map is both celebration and checklist. The spread of formal FOI frameworks marks a clear normative shift: openness about public decision-making is no longer a niche demand but an expectation in most parts of the globe. Where laws exist, citizens and investigators have a legal pathway to request documents, data, and explanations that can uncover corruption, improve service delivery, and hold officials accountable.
Yet the numbers also underline unevenness. “Comprehensive law” can mean very different things in practice: scope of covered bodies, exemptions, proactive disclosure requirements, appeal mechanisms, and enforcement capacities vary widely. The six countries with regulation-based regimes, and numerous others with weak enforcement or broad secrecy exceptions, illustrate how a legal title alone does not guarantee meaningful access. Implementation, training officials, resourcing oversight bodies, and building user-friendly request systems, remains the central challenge.
The inclusion of 26 non-UN jurisdictions highlights another complexity: cross-border and digital information flows. Territories like Taiwan and Kosovo, which operate outside full UN membership, still provide legal access for their populations, reinforcing the idea that FOI is a governance choice rather than an international status. Meanwhile, the growing expectation that governments publish data proactively, not only respond to requests, reflects the inflection of FOI toward open-data thinking.
Looking ahead, advocates point to several priorities: closing the legislative gap in states that still lack FOI guarantees, strengthening independent oversight and appeal rights where laws exist, and modernizing procedures for the digital age so that requests and disclosures are timely, searchable and machine-readable. The map’s reach into populous states suggests that technical improvements and political will could dramatically increase the practical usefulness of existing laws for billions of people.
Banisar’s updated map offers a practical tool for activists, lawmakers, and researchers: a snapshot of legal progress and a guide to where the fight for true transparency must intensify. As the global community moves from codifying access toward making it usable in everyday life, the next phase will be judged less by how many countries have laws on the books and more by how effectively those laws deliver information to people who need it.