Freedom of Information Act

[Carol Anne]

Does anyone know anything about this? I was reading on a DWP website that anyone can apply for information held by them, does that actually mean anyone could apply for my personal information or vice versa if I had an idle notion to find out things about someone their credit rating or whether they had a police record, is that information now freely available. The info on the DWP website wasn't all that clear.

[JudgeJ]

The Freedom of Information Act relates, generally, to information being held by public authorities (government departments, local councils and so on) being made available to the public.

It does not apply to information held about specific individuals. No infomation concerning living individuals must be made available unless it complies with the data protection act.

Contrarily, under the same Act, individuals are entitled to be given any information which any public body (and some private ones) holds about them. But this can only be released to the individuals themselves or to Third Parties with the individual's consent.

In short, you can find out general information held by public bodies, but not information they hold about individuals other than yourself.

Needless to say there are a number of exceptions and exclusions whch are too numerous to list.

[Octavius]

The FOI Act gives any person, of any nationality anywhere in the world the right to request official information from public authorities, subject to certain exemptions. Over 100,000 public authorities fall under the Act including all government departments, the police, local authorities, schools and non-departmental public bodies.

Anyone, including individuals and companies, can apply to have access to any information the authority holds, no matter what form it is held in. This includes everything from paper files to electronic documents (including email) right down to the �post-it� notes on a desk.

There are a number of exemptions to the general rights of access. Some exemptions are absolute and do not require consideration of a Public Interest test. Qualified or Non-Absolute exemptions are all subject to a Public Interest test. This means that even if a particular exemption category is applicable it will still be disclosed unless it can be successfully argued that the public interest in withholding it is greater than releasing. What determines a public interest is still a little unclear but case law may clarify this in due course.

Factors where it might be appropriate to consider exemptions against disclosure include:
 not prejudicing a persons privacy rights
 not prejudicing an investigation

[Carol Anne]

Thank you both. Thats a lot clearer!