Public Access to Documents

Any EU or Schengen country national or resident, including legal persons residing or having a registered office in these countries, is eligible to apply for public access to documents held by Frontex.


How to apply for documents?

Before you apply, please use the search function first at Frontex’s public register of documents – your documents may be already published there. If not, please formulate your application as precisely as possible to allow for a quick identification of the documents. You may submit your application online or send it by traditional mail to:

Transparency Office
Frontex
Pl. Europejski 6
00-844 Warsaw
Poland


For first-time applicants

Whether you are a natural person or you act on behalf of a legal person, when you apply for the first time, we will have to confirm your eligibility.

If you are a natural person, you will be asked to provide:

  • a form of identification in a PDF, ASICE, ADOC, BDOC or EDOC format
  • a copy of your ID/passport/residence permit issued by an EU/Schengen country. It is sufficient to display only your full name and the country of issuance – any other data may be redacted.

If you are acting on behalf of a natural or legal person, you will be asked for:

  • a registration certificate of the legal person from an EU/Schengen country’s competent body;
  • an authorisation to act on behalf of that natural or legal person, including:
  • for the natural person giving authorisation: the information required for natural persons, as listed above.


How long does it take?

All applications are acknowledged and handled promptly. We inform applicants about the decision within 15 working days from registration. In exceptional cases, this time limit may be extended by additional 15 working days.

If your application is inaccurate or more information is required, we will ask you to provide clarifications and guide you along.

If it relates to a very long document or to a large number of documents, Frontex may confer with you informally with a view to finding a fair solution.


What happens if Frontex has to refuse access?

As part of our two-stage administrative procedure, you may – within 15 working days of receiving our decision – make a confirmatory application asking us to reconsider our position.

Further to our decision following your confirmatory application, you may institute court proceedings and/or make a complaint to the European Ombudsman.


Data protection

Data controller is the Transparency Office established by Management Board Decision No 25/2016 of 21 September 2016. Physical and mail address: Pl. Europejski 6, 00-844 Warsaw – Poland; email: pad@frontex.europa.eu.

The Data Protection Officer can be contacted at dataprotectionoffice@frontex.europa.eu.

Compliance with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 necessities the processing of personal data by the controller.

Recipients of the data are dedicated Frontex staff members processing an application for public access to documents. There will be no international data transfer. The data will be stored for a period of five years, from the moment of the closure of the file.

Applicants have the right to access, rectify, restrict, object, and erase their data, as well as to claim data portability. Applicants can exercise their rights through the Transparency Office and can lodge a complaint with the European Data Protection Supervisor.

The provision of the data is a statutory requirement of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. Failure to provide data will render the application inadmissible.

No automated decision-making process or profiling take place.