Foi News

Launch of new university FoI website

Questions might be; how little work can I do? Will this course bankrupt my parents? Does she fancy me?

News has come to me today of an interesting new website that has been set up which targets Freedom of Information requests to universities.

The website AcademicFoI.com is targeting lecturers and employees of the nation’s universities as a vehicle which they can use to ask FoI questions anonymously.

It also says that it will take on interesting round-robin requests to all 125 universities and then compile a report of the results.

In an e-mail to lecturers it says: 

AcademicFOI.Com is a new website about Freedom of Information requests to UK universities.

Academic staff are welcome to send us anonymous or off the record suggestions for Freedom of Information requests about topics of interest or concern to them. We will then submit these in our own name free of charge and publish the responses on our website.

We hope that this service will be useful to academics who believe that submitting an FOI request in your own name to your own institution is unlikely to be a good career move.

In addition to single requests we are also willing to consider suggestions for projects involving the submission of identical requests to all 125 UK universities.

At the end of March we will be publishing a report based on FOI responses from all universities on the subject of employment tribunal claims and non disclosure agreements.

You can sign up for our free regular e-mail bulletin with news of recent requests, responses and reports.

It is an interesting concept. Perhaps one that could be transposed into the world of council employees, police forces and even Government departments?

The website is operated by a man called Ian Benson founder of a company called UK Future TV [link]. It appears he has had a rather amusing spat with the University of Plymouth in the past [link]. He complained to the Advertising Standards Authority that their slogan “the enterprise university” was misleading when his FoI request revealed just two of the university’s 10,000 students went on to start a business with the institution’s help. The ASA ruled in the university’s favour saying “enterprise” had a much wider meaning.

Getting personal with Dr’s information

Can I disclose that personal information because it's in the public interest?

An interesting decision has been published from the Tribunal giving more insight into how it approaches the question “personal information”.

In this latest case the Tribunal has overturned the Commissioner’s initial decision that the personal information could be kept secret.

It has now ordered the General Medical Council to release documents about a doctor who sat on its Fitness to Practice Committee and got into hot water over his links to the controversial Church of Scientology.

The Tribunal clearly spelled out the main issue in the case when it said:: “There is an inherent tension between the objective of freedom of information and the objective of protecting personal data”.

Indeed the issue of how the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act co-exist is something that will keep academics and lawyers busy for years. Freedom of Information gives you a right to have information while the Data Protection Act is a law to stop people giving that information away.

Ultimately it would appear that a judgement has to be made when a FoI request comes in to decide if the rights of the requestor override the rights of the data subject.

The three point test that appears to have been adopted is:

         i.            There must be a legitimate public interest in disclosure;

       ii.            The disclosure must be necessary to meet the public interest; and

      iii.            The disclosure must not cause unwarranted harm to the interests of the individual.

In this case the Tribunal ruled that the public interest was more powerful that the rights of the individual and have ordered disclosure.

However, the case is still subject to an appeal and so the actual information on which the decision was made have not yet been released.

Here is a link to the Tribunal’s decision [Ref: EA/2009/0063].

From a personal point of view I am cheered by the decision as it would seem to strengthen my arguments into the release of the performance objectives of the chief executive of London 2012. If anybody knows how I could contact the applicant, William Thackeray, I’d be very grateful.

UPDATE: 27.2.10: All the details of this appeal are on WhatDoTheyKnow. Apparently it is the first case from WDTK to reach the Tribunal. Congratulations to both Mr Thackeray and WDTK. Here is a link to the history of the case [link]

How Low Can You Go? Part II.

That crowbar looks far too shiny

The topic of when simple statistical data becomes personal data has always been a topic that has caused a great deal of head scratching.

If I ask how many people in East Sussex are obese nobody would consider that to be personal data and subject to a S.40 exemption. However, if you were to ask how many adult males living at my address were obese and the answer was to be one – you’d have violated my privacy, breached the Data Protection Act and ridden rough shod across S.40. Anyhow, just for the record, I’d like to state that I’m just slightly overweight!

But nobody has really said how and when that numerical data becomes personal data. The topic has come before the Tribunal and the Commissioner before and the issue has still not really been resolved (I’ve put a series of links at the end to judgements which have focused on this point).

However, the latest judgement from the offices of the Information Commissioner [Ref: FS50161581] relates to the Greater Manchester Police (GMP). It received a request wanting to know the number of burglaries that took place in Honeysuckle Close and Tunshill Road.

To my mind the key point in this question was the number of houses in each street. In Tunshill Road there are 83 but in Honeysuckle Close there are just 13.

GMP refused to release the data saying it was subject to S.31 (law enforcement) as well as S.40 (personal information).

The S.31 argument was quickly dispensed with by the Commissioner despite some interesting arguments by GMP which included the fact that disclosure of the information might lead to more burglaries as criminals would expect the stolen property to be replaced with new goods courtesy of the insurance companies.

But the S.31 plea from GMP was rejected by the Commissioner who said “this would not present a real and significant impact on the ability of the police to prevent crime and to apprehend offenders”.

On to S.40 and the Commissioner admitted the number of properties and the number of burglaries were small in number but added “I am not persuaded that, taken together, they would allow for the identification of any individual.”

The Commissioner touches on the subject of “crime maps”, a new politically-driven idea that will allow people to look up on the internet to see what sort of crimes have been committed and where. However, he says that just because a police force picks a certain parameters for the reporting of each crime type the Commissioner, when considering individual Freedom of Information requests, does not have to be bound by the police approach.

As it would appear that 13 is considered a number not too low to allow a S.40 exemption to be applied. The key question is when does the number become too low (see my earlier post on this topic ‘How Low Can You Go?’) and would the level change if we were talking about more sensitive personal detail.

To test drive this ruling I’m asking on whatdotheyknow how many burglaries have taken place each year in Connaught Square, Westminster, to see if the arrival of the Blairs after he left No.10 and the associated police presence had any effect on the number of house raids [link].

Other judgements:

Common Service Agency v Scottish Information Commissioner [2008] UKHL 47, link

Department of Health v Information Commissioner & Pro-Life Alliance [EA/2008/0074], link

Sussex Police v Information Commissioner [EA/2009/0013], link

JOB – Data Protection & Freedom of Information (4 jobs) – £12k/£22k – Cardiff

British Transport Police -

Disclosure Manager – Cardiff

Data Protection & Freedom of Information Supervisor x 2 - £15k/£22k – Cardiff

Data Protection & Freedom of Information Assistant – £12k/£18k – Cardiff

March 1, 2010

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JOB – Asssistant Director of Corporate Services – £40k/£46k – Tonbridge

West Kent PCT – Asssistant Director of Corporate Services – £40k/£46k – Tonbridge

Closing date: March 8, 2010

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JOB – Information Governance Support – £22k/£25k – Leeds

The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission – Information Governance Support – £22k/£25k – Leeds

Closing date: March 11, 2010

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JOB – Communications Assistant – £15k/£18k – Huntingdon

Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust – Communications Assistant – £15k/£18k – Huntingdon

Closing date: March 8, 2010

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JOB – Committee Officer – £24k/£25k – Lewes

Lewes District Council – Committee Officer – £24k/£25k – Lewes

Closing date: March 3, 2010

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JOB – Senior Advisor, Data Protection – £60k – London

BBC – Senior Advisor, Data Protection – £60k – London

Closing date: March 8, 2010

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Border Agency gets in a pickle over Dutch MP’s visit

Mr Wilders - Your name is on the list and you are NOT coming in.

The UK Border Agency has had its knuckles rapped by the Information Commissioner after it took almost a year to respond to a Freedom of Information question.

A request was made on the whatdotheyknow website about information relating to the decision to ban Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the UK.

Mr Wilders had caused controversy in that he was responsible for producing a film called Fitna, branded by many as anti-muslim.

Because of these views the British Government decided he should not be allowed into the country. Eventually he was allowed in and showed his film at the House of Lords.

More background on Mr Wilders and his film can be found [here].

The request for information was made to the UK Border Agency on February 12, 2009 and they acknowledged the request five days later. In March, July, August and September there was some communication between the parties but the question was still not answered.

Eventually in on September 30 the applicant got in touch with the Commissioner’s office and on October 30 the Commissioner communicated with the UK Borders Agency, who said “unfortunately a response to this case has not yet been issued”.

The UK Border Agency said it was in the process of answering but was trying to assess a possible S.36 (Prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) exemption to some of the information.

Finally the Information Commissioner counted out the UK Border Agency when it still had not not replied by December.

A Decision Notice was issued dated January 7, 2010 [link] and finally the UK Border Agency did reply, although it decided after all that time to exempt most of the information under S.21 (Available by another means), S.27 (International Relations), S.36 (Prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) and S.40 (Personal Information).

You can see the whole history of the request posted on whatdotheyknow [link] and for those of you interested there is a news clipping on Mr Wilders below.