UnGovr Records

Overview

Most countries have laws giving people the right to access government records, but the rules vary enormously. In the United States alone, there's FOIA at the federal level and 50 different state laws. Internationally, laws range from India's Right to Information Act to Germany's Informationsfreiheitsgesetz to Mexico's transparency laws across 32 states. Each jurisdiction has different request formats, response deadlines, fee structures, and exemptions.

UnGovr Records uses UnGovr's entity registry and legal database to help people draft valid requests, submit them to the right office, track statutory deadlines, and process the documents they receive — regardless of which country or jurisdiction they're dealing with.

Already Available

UnGovr maintains a directory of over 370 open records laws spanning 140+ countries and their subnational jurisdictions — including all 50 US states, Canada's 13 provinces and territories, Australia's 8 states, Germany's 16 federal states, India's 30 states, Mexico's 32 states, and more. Each entry includes the relevant statute, response timelines, fee structures, and enforcement mechanisms.

Planned Features

Multi-jurisdiction Support

Automatically determines the correct law, format, and submission process based on the entity you're requesting records from — whether it's a US federal agency, a Canadian province, an Australian state, or a German Landesbehörde.

Request Drafting

Generates properly formatted requests using the correct legal citations, fee waiver language, and preferred delivery format for each jurisdiction — in the appropriate language.

Deadline Tracking

Monitors statutory response deadlines for each jurisdiction and notifies you when a response is due or overdue, accounting for business day rules that vary by country.

Batch Filing

Submit the same records request to multiple agencies at once — useful for cross-jurisdictional research or comparative investigations across states or countries.

Document Processing

Received documents are processed into searchable, structured Open Records Extracts (OREs) with OCR, metadata extraction, and redaction detection.

Appeal Assistance

When requests are denied, get guidance on the appeal process for that jurisdiction, including relevant legal precedent and exemption analysis.

How It Works

Drafting a Request

Tracking Responses

Build Status

Get Involved

We're looking for journalists, researchers, and civic advocates to help shape the open records tools. Your experience with public records requests — in any country — will inform what we build.

• Get involved at ungovr.org

Tech Stack