Faceless bureaucrats and Freedom of Information Act disclosures
Why are our recent simple Freedom of Information Act requests being met with bureaucratic obstruction, based on such dubious legal grounds ?
Why should the Freedom of Information Act exemptions be used to try to hide the Names and Job Titles of former Russian Federation diplomats in London ?
Partly to prove that that Freedom of Information Act requests to the House of Commons are not all about MP's expenses or Constituents' personal details:
In both of these "disclosures, the public authorities have sought to censor or redact or simply refuse to disclose just the Names and Job Titles of bureaucrats, claiming that these somehow constitute "personal data, even though the FOIA section 40 Personal Data exemption guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office or the Ministry of Justice / Department for Constitutional Affairs is not so draconian
The House of Commons also seeks to hide the name, email address and direct telephone numbers - information which Home Office civil servants are quite happy to print out on their Letterheads, by trying to use the section 38 Health and Safety exemption.
How exactly is a civil servant's "Health" or "Safety" put "at risk" through the publication of their official, well protected, *.gsi.gov.uk Government Secure Intranet gateway email address ?
Comments
[via UK Freedom of Information blog - Tribunal ruling on naming officials]
Tthe Information Tribunal's judgment rejecting an appeal by the Ministry of Defence, and allow the names, job titles and contact details of lots of middle ranking and senior civil servants working in the arms sales agency to be published, gives us a strong indication that both the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the House of Commons stand little chance of appealing against our far more modest FOIA requests linked to above, as they rely on exactly the same exemptions.
Posted by: wtwu | August 30, 2007 8:58 AM
On the subject of the House of Commons refusing requests, I'm not sure S.38 would cover any details which relate to living individuals. See the ICO guidance here at the enclosed URL, particularly section B.
S.40 would be the relevant exemption, however in such cases consideration of whether the personal data relates to the personal or professional life of the data subject is suggested by the ICO guidance.
Get appealing to ICO and see who is willing to justify S.36 with their signature!
Posted by: Jimbo | September 11, 2007 4:02 PM