Information Access Redux

One of the most ridiculous demands of officials, whom journalists requested for information, is recorded in the city of Petropavlovsk.

The correspondent of the newspaper "Northern Kazakhstan" appealed to the Department of Public Health of the North-Kazakhstan oblast with a request to tell what to do if a person broke a mercury thermometer at home and how to dispose it. The representative of the Department said that the information is in the electronic version, but it can be provided upon an official request submitted on the editorial form, signed by the head of the media and stamped. This request must be scanned and submitted by email. In order to fasten the process of providing information the journalist was asked to provide the newspapper’s Business identification number (BIN) "since the request has to be registered in the unified system of the e-documents flow as a legal entity appeal that requires the organization's BIN”.