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What
information is subject to the FOIA Act
FOIA rights apply in respect of recorded information
which is held by a public authority. What information
is subject to the FOIA?
This
is a detailed summary of the relevant section of DCA
Guidance.
All
recorded information held by the HSE or other public
body is covered by the right of access. "Holding"
information includes holding a copy of a record produced
or supplied by someone else.
| Some
or all of the information is not held by the HSE |
| • |
If
some or all of the requested information is not
held by the HSE but it appears that it might be
held by another public authority then it may be
necessary for the HSE to transfer the request
to the second authority. |
| Information
that is held on behalf of someone else |
| • |
If
the HSE only holds information on behalf of someone
else, for example a department holding Trade Union
information on their computer system, then that
public authority may not have to provide the information
in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Whether information is held on behalf of someone
else is a difficult question and will depend on
the precise circumstances involved. |
| Information,
not documents. |
| • |
The
Freedom of Information Act entitles individuals
to have access to information and not to documents.
It may often be the case that the easiest way
to provide the information is to supply a copy
of the relevant document since a document may
contain the information that has been requested.
However, it may also contain a great deal of other
information. |
| Recorded
information. |
| • |
The
right of access applies to information recorded
in any form. This includes:
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information
that is held electronically (such as on
a laptop computer or an electronic records
management system); |
| - |
information
that is recorded on paper (such as a letter,
memorandum or papers in a file) |
| -
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sound
and video recordings (such as a CD or video
tape); |
| -
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It
will even include notes that have been written
in the margins of a document, note pad or
post-it note. |
The
DCA Guidance states:
“It
is important that e-mail messages that form
part of the official record are saved for
as long as business needs require and are
moved from e-mail accounts and personal folders
and stored corporately in accordance with
departmental record management procedures.
E-mail messages that do not form part of the
official record should be managed within the
mailbox in the short term but permanently
deleted when no longer required.”
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| Stored
information |
| • |
The
right of access also applies to information
that is in storage, for example if it is in
the HSE’s filing systems or an out-sourced
records unit.
The DCA Guidance states that, the HSE and other
public bodies:
“should
ensure that you have access to all of the
information held by your authority which has
been requested by the applicant before making
any decision on release. You should ensure
that all information is requested from your
authority's registry, or any out-sourced records
storage, in good time to allow you to respond
to the request in its entirety within 20 working
days.”
If
the information has been sent to the National
Archives, the information is deemed to be held
by The National Archives. Therefore, the decision
on releasing material rests with them who will
consult the HSE or other public body which placed
the material there where this is required by
the Act
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Information that has been deleted or amended. |
| • |
The
right of access to information under the Act
applies to information held by the HSE at the
time that the request is received. Data that
has only been temporarily deleted from a computer
and is stored in such a way that it could easily
be recovered, for example from the Deleted Items
folder in Outlook should be considered to be
"held" by the HSE and may have to
be provided if a request is received.
If
however the information was deleted with the
intention that it should be permanently deleted
and this was not achieved only because the technology
would not permit it, the HSE may regard such
data as having been permanently deleted. The
Guidance says that:
“Information
held by an authority must not be deleted or
amended in order to avoid complying with a
FOI request. Altering, defacing, blocking,
erasing, destroying or concealing information
in order to avoid providing it in response
to an FOI request may constitute a criminal
offence under section 77 of the FOI Act for
which the person convicted will be held personally
responsible.”
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