1 of work, the matter shall be decided and access to the document granted within one month of the receipt of the request for access by the authority. Section 15 — Forwarding the request for a document to another authority (1) If access is requested to a document prepared by another authority or pertaining to a matter under consideration by another authority, the request may be forwarded to be dealt with by the authority that has prepared the document and is responsible for the consideration of the matter as a whole. (2) If access is requested to personal, business, real estate or vehicle data or other similar identification or address information which is entered into a register meant for public use by another authority, the request may be transferred for the consideration of the appropriate registration authority. Section 16 — Modes of access (1) Access to an official document shall be by explaining its contents orally to the requester, by giving the document to be studied, copied or listened to in the offices of the authority, or by issuing a copy or a printout of the document. Access to the public contents of the document shall be granted in the manner requested, unless this would unreasonably inconvenience the activity of the authority owing to the volume of the documents, the inherent difficulty of copying or any other comparable reason. (2) Access to the public information in a computerised register of the decisions of an authority shall be provided by issuing a copy in magnetic media or in some other electronic form, unless there is a special reason to the contrary. Similar access to information in any other official document shall be at the discretion of the authority, unless otherwise provided in an Act. (3) Access may be granted to a personal data filing system controlled by an authority in the form of a copy or a printout, or an electronic-format copy of the contents of the system, unless specifically otherwise provided in an Act, if the person requesting access has the right to record and use such data according to the legislation on the protection of personal data. However, access to personal data for purposes of direct marketing, polls or market research shall not be granted unless specifically otherwise provided or unless the data subject has consented to the same. Chapter 5 — Duty of the authorities to promote access and good practice on information management Section 17 — Taking the right of access into account in decision-making (1) When making decisions under this Act and also otherwise when performing its duties, an authority shall see to it that, in view of sections 1 and 3, access to information on the activities of the authority is not unduly or unlawfully restricted, nor more restricted than what is necessary for the protection of the interests of the person protected, and that the persons requesting access are treated on an equal basis. (2) In the application of the provisions on document secrecy, attention shall also be paid to whether the secrecy obligation is independent of the case-by-case consequences of access (strict secrecy), whether any access to the document is based on the adverse consequences of access (secrecy based on putative access), or whether any access to the document requires that there manifestly are no adverse consequences of access (secrecy based on putative secrecy). Section 18 — Good practice on information management (1) In order to create and realise good practice on information management, the authorities shall see to the appropriate availability, usability, protection, integrity and other matters of quality pertaining to documents and information management systems and, for this purpose, especially: 6