Dear All,
I have been discussing this issue, off list with Susan Healy (TNA) who
has been most helpful, alongside comments from others.
Susan has reminded me about the need to carefully read Section
9A(1)(DPA98 as amended by FOIA2000) and also referred me to the
excellent guidance on the draft code of practice sent to the ICO last
month (I am reliably informed). Those who viewed the draft may recall
the following:-
Category (e) Recorded personal information that does not fall into any
of the above categories and is held by a public authority as defined by
the FOI Acts (see Schedule I) or a publicly owned company (Section 5 of
the UK FOI Act and section 6 of the Scottish FOI Act). This category
divides into two sub-categories:
o Relatively structured structured data. This is data that is part
of, or is intended to be part of, a set of information relating to
individuals and that is structured by reference to individuals or by
criteria relating to individuals but that does not have an internal
structure or referencing system that would facilitate retrieval of
specific information about particular individuals. An example would be a
set of case files with a chronological arrangement of papers within each
file and which was not otherwise indexed.
o Unstructured data. This is data that does not have the type of
structure described above. An example would be a policy or subject file
in which details of an individual occurred randomly.
Whilst that is excellent for practitioners it does need diluting for
staff not directly connected to DPA policy etc. I have decided to
review the policy advice to:-
"wholly unstructured personal data falling within section 1 (1)(e) of
the Data Protection Act 1998 may not have to be disclosed if it falls
outside of the 18 hours FOI rule. Please seek advice from the Council's
Compliance and Records Manager should you believe any subject access
request meets this criteria".
I have simply added "wholly" and changed "does not" to "may not".
Colleagues have commented that the unstructured data is an FOI black
hole. I disagree. The data is considered for release using similar fee
conditions to FOI, the release mechanism merely rests within DPA as the
true purpose is person orientated. This then leads me to think about
Durrant, I decided to stop there and rest my partially unstructured
meanderings!
I apologise if this is a little involved, but I think this is exactly
where things go wrong.
Views always welcome.
Paul
_______________________________________________________________________
Leicestershire County Council - rated a 'four-star' council by the Audit Commission
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