Balancing Transparency, Safety and Public Interest on Right to Know

In December last year we made a difficult decision to no longer allow people to make requests to the Classification Board or the Classification Review Board for documents related to MA 15+, R 18+, X 18+, or RC content using Right to Know. We did this after careful consideration of the risks such content poses to the public, our staff, and volunteers.

We’ve received some feedback on these changes. In the interests of transparency, we wanted to explain our approach, including what we considered and what discussions we had.

In summary, this decision was made by multiple senior employees at OpenAustralia Foundation, the charity behind Right to Know, after it became clear that there was a very real risk of members of the public, our staff and volunteers being exposed to harmful, distressing or potentially illegal content.

Why this matters

Right to Know empowers anyone to access public interest information. We also make it publicly available so that others can benefit. Since launching, people have made over 12,000 requests through the site.

We believe strongly in transparency. When you make a request, your request, the response from the authority, and any documents are made public immediately so everyone can learn from the information. All that an authority needs to do is reply to an email we send them – no special process to learn.

We also take privacy seriously. Authorities don’t need to know your personal email address to process an FOI request, and our platform is designed to protect that. Our system is designed to prevent people from making their email address public.

When one of our users alerted us that the Classification Board and Classification Review Board were asking requesters to provide personal email addresses, we stepped in and spoke with the FOI Director at the Classification Board and Classification Review Board to advocate on behalf of our users – something we’ve done many times before.

What makes these requests different

The Classification Board and the Classification Review Board are responsible for assigning ratings to films, computer games, and publications, determining whether material is suitable for general release or restricted to adults. They also handle objections to classifications – requests to raise or lower the rating of certain content.

Unlike other agencies, these Boards routinely handle adult or restricted material, including some content that cannot legally be distributed to minors or the general public. This unique context created a serious challenge for us.

How we reached our decision

When we reached out, the FOI team wanted to confirm that we were comfortable receiving and hosting the released documents before they started to send them.

To make an informed decision, we reviewed four sets of released documents: three supplied directly by the Classification Board and one sent to us by someone who had made a request via Right to Know.

It quickly became clear that the content, while lawfully released under FOI, was not appropriate for open publication on our platform. Some of it contained adult or explicit material, while others touched on themes that could cause distress or mental harm if viewed unexpectedly. 

We determined that publishing this material would put both our team and members of the public at risk of exposure to harmful or traumatic content.

Our guiding principle

Transparency is a cornerstone of democracy – but so is protecting people from harm. We take both responsibilities seriously. By restricting requests to the Classification Board and Classification Review Board involving adult or refused-classification material, we’re striking a balance between open access to information and community safety.

People can still make FOI requests for these materials directly to the relevant authority outside of Right to Know. Our goal is to keep the platform a safe, inclusive, and effective space for everyone seeking government transparency.