copyright, freedom of information and data protection?

Question

Discuss how copyright, freedom of information and Data Protection Laws affect Librarians and information workers

Answer 1

Freedom of information concerns official government documents. The government does not have copyright protection, in the US it is treated as public domain. Some non-government employed consultants may have rights in works prepared for the government if they were not "work for hire". That's a really unusual situation.

Public domain sourced data does not have copy protection. Use of government supplied information for the purpose of indentity theft or other fraudulent uses would be a criminal act, not an infringement of copyright.