Just before Christmas 2021, as a thank you gift to 254 staff for their hard work after a challenging year (not my words, but those of the Information Commissioner’s Office), someone in the ICO used their corporate credit card to buy them all a box of chocolates from Hotel Chocolat. I cannot tell you who […]
The defining issue of the Tony Blair era is almost certainly the Iraq War, and I suspect that when most people think of him and his sidekick Alistair Campbell, it’s WMDs and dodgy dossiers that come to mind. So when the First Tier Tribunal issued a decision recently on a journalist’s attempt to dig into the […]
On July 19th 2018, Linda McKee made a simple (but admirably polite) FOI request to the Information Commissioner’s Office. McKee asked for a copy of the ICO’s special categories policy document, a requirement of the Data Protection Act 2018 when processing special categories data in certain circumstances. The DPA was passed in early May 2018, […]
This is a guest post from the redoubtable John Slater, whose tireless efforts to hold DWP to account are a lesson in how FOI should be used. John has had real success in wrestling information out of a stubborn and secretive system, but the post describes the hurdles in the way of the applicant, and the shameful way in […]
A few years ago I went to Strasbourg, home of the famous European Court of Human Rights. After admiring the building itself, I noticed a disabled man camping on the other side of the tracks that take visitors to the tram stop named, rather piously, ‘Droits De L’Homme’. He had a huge display in several languages, […]
In May 2016, the Labour member for Heatons North, Alex Ganotis, became Leader of Stockport Council, having been a councillor for some years. A month or so later, I read a story mentioning him in the Manchester Evening News, and his name rang a bell. Alex Ganotis is also a Group Manager at the Information Commissioner’s Office – I […]
Many of today’s newspapers report (once again) that police forces are refusing to name wanted suspects because of Data Protection and Human Rights. It’s tempting to assume that by now, everyone knows that the Data Protection Act does not prevent the disclosure of wanted suspects’ names and photos, so when another newspaper makes an FOI […]
In November 2015, the Managing Director of Wolverhampton Council, Mr Keith Ireland, gave his considered verdict on Freedom of Information: “The vast majority of requests come from media across the country, be that the BBC, local media, or media in general. They come from people who are out to create trouble for councils and students […]
In all the furore over the announcement of the Government’s draft Investigatory Powers Bill, one detail caught my eye. The Daily Telegraph published an article by Peter Wanless, Chief Executive of the NSPCC. Mr Wanless was keen that whatever else, we did not forget about the children: “We have heard plenty from groups extolling privacy […]
As a secretive committee of slightly unappetising characters attempts to cut the FOI Act down to size, the voices ranged in favour of the legislation is bewilderingly wide, from The Sun to Reprieve. Relatively few people have put their head above the parapet to put the case for less FOI, but one brave example is […]
