Alarm bells are ringing at bird clubs across England and Wales after a little-noticed change in the law which came into effect on 1st January. The Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) have been implemented in parallel with the Freedom of Information Act. Both pieces of legislation give members of the public the right to request information held by a public body. But what constitutes a public body? And what information may have to be divulged? Judith Smith, of the Association of County Recorders & Editors (ACRE) and County Recorder for Greater Manchester, first alerted bird clubs to the fact that EIR could spell trouble. The initial fear among conservationists who took time to study the regulations was that access to environmental information held on a public register, for example a local Biological Records Centre run by a local authority, would be a green light to the unscrupulous. Imagine egg-collectors being able to request all the nest records for Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus В­ breeding data collated by bird-club volunteers over many years. The bird club itself may not be a public body (as we went to press, just days before implementation of the EIR, it was still unclear what status bird clubs have) but if bird-club records are deposited with a public body, they would be available to anyone. Common sense would suggest that any sensitive information should be exempt from disclosure. Indeed, this is explicit in guidance issued by the Scottish Executive for the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations, after the