About released information
The FCO selects any information considered to be of interest to the public to be published on this website. All released material on this website is published in the Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) file format. To view or print them, you will require the Adobe Acrobat reader software which you can download free of charge from the Adobe website.
Material that the FCO has decided to publish proactively (not in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act) are published on the appropriate website, in most cases the FCO website.
Copyright
Most material supplied in response to a Freedom of Information Act 2000 request will be subject to copyright protection. You are free to use this material for your information, including for any non-commercial research you may be doing. Material can also be used for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will have been produced by government officials and so will be Crown copyright. Crown copyright is managed by HMSO and you can find out details on the arrangements for re-using Crown copyright on the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website. However, other documents may involve you contacting the person or organisation that produced the document for permission.
Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website