Freedom of Information

I recently started looking into aspects of freedom of information in this country, there’s currently a new bill on its way through parliament so I thought I’d find out what it’s all about. Anyway here’s the low down on just one of the things I read about; access to computer files concerning you. The Data Protection Act (1984) gives you the right to see personal files held about you on computer. This applies to ANY information held about you from that held by the government, right down to that held by a college tutor. Of course this act does not come without a few exceptions; data can be witheld for the following reasons:

  • National security: If a cabinet minister says the information needs to be witheld to safeguard national security, then you ain’t gonna get your hands on it!

  • Law Enforcement: Personal information held for the purpose of detecting or preventing crime, or apprehending offenders is exempt, but only if disclosure would prejudice one of these purposes. Importantly this exception covers not just governmental organisations but also things like banks, and building society accounts. Also note that if you are the victim of a crime you are much more likely to be able to see the information regarding you.

  • Personal Information about someone else: If your file contains information about someone else, you can only see if you either have that persons consent, or the information can be shown to you without revealing that persons identity (ie deleting the name). If you think you know who might be mentioned then you can get a letter of consent from that person which gets around this exception.

  • Details that would identify someone who has provided details about you: These are witheld, but the actual information is not. This also only applies to individuals not organisations. Your neighbour can grass on you for commiting benefit fraud, and go unnamed, if your bank manager does the same then the bank gets named and it’s pretty obvious who it is.

 

 The intentions of the data user (the person who used the computer) towards you are exempt. A note in your employment file saying your employer intended to promote or make you redundant could be withheld. However, opinions about you must be disclosed.

  • Word processing: Any text document that is being written about you and stored on computer doesn’t have to be released, though if the information is analysed in anyway then it is accessible.

  • Other exemptions: These mainly deal with employment data, some club memberships, medical and social work records.

    • Of course many organisations etc also keep paper records; these are covered by a different set of rules which I’m not going to cover here as they’d take up far too much space. Basically you have no right to see any of them unless they’re covered by one of the many many exceptions. As a rule of the thumb I’d assume that you won’t be able to see ‘em unless you can prove to them that you won’t be compromising national security, damaging the organisation, or likely to harm someone else by seeing them. I believe that certain new European legislation was supposed to deal with freedom of information regarding paper records, but I can’t comment on this as I’ve found nothing out about it, though I am informed that companies such as BP keep paper records on employees because then the employee will have no right to see them.

    Dan Complicity

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