What if this request is part of a genuine attempt by the government concerned to deal with corruption by their own officials, eg people who may be falsely claiming that a particular student has attended an overseas university and then pocketing the grant intended for them?  

At the very least, you might see if you can contact the student (assuming the personal actually is or was a student with you) to see whether they have any objection to you answering.

Is it self evident that Condition 6 could not be the basis for disclosure, particularly if this is a genuine attempt to deal with corruption by lawful means, where the student's identity has been misappropriated by fraudsters? I realise it may be difficult to know whether this is the case. But if the former, would confirming the truth involve unwarranted prejudice to the interests of the student?

Maurice Frankel
Campaign for Freedom of Information
Suite 102, 16 Baldwins Gardens
London EC1N 7RJ, UK
Tel: (020) 7831 7477
Fax: (020) 7831 7461
www.cfoi.org.uk
http://twitter.com/CampaignFOI



On 17 Feb 2011, at 11:29, Stock, Sara wrote:

Dear all
 
Could I ask your advice, please. I’ve had a letter from a government Ministry from a non EAA country asking whether a named national of their country is or has ever been a student here. The information is apparently needed for part of an investigation into conduct of their own public servants.
 
My feeling is that this is not something I need to release. I can see no justification in DPA and I’m inclined to refuse. Would others agree?
 
(I’m having one of those weeks where I’ve had so many complex DP queries to make decision on I’m starting to lose faith in my own judgment. Thankfully it’s almost Friday!)
 
Sara
 
Mrs Sara Stock
University Records Manager
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester
CO4 3SQ
 
Tel: (01206) 874853
E-mail: sstock
For general Freedom of Information queries please e-mail: foi
(non-Essex users should add @essex.ac.uk to create full e-mail addresses)
 

All archives of messages are stored permanently and are available to the world wide web community at large at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html

Selected commands (the command has been filled in below in the body of the email if you are receiving emails in HTML format):

  • Leaving this list: send leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
  • Suspending emails from all JISCMail lists: send SET * NOMAIL to [log in to unmask]
  • To receive emails from this list in text format: send SET data-protection NOHTML to [log in to unmask]
  • To receive emails from this list in HTML format: send SET data-protection HTML to [log in to unmask]

All user commands can be found at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm and are sent in the body of an otherwise blank email to [log in to unmask]

Any queries about sending or receiving messages please send to the list owner [log in to unmask]

(Please send all commands to [log in to unmask] not the list or the moderators, and all requests for technical help to [log in to unmask], the general office helpline)


All archives of messages are stored permanently and are available to the world wide web community at large at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html

Selected commands (the command has been filled in below in the body of the email if you are receiving emails in HTML format):

All user commands can be found at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm and are sent in the body of an otherwise blank email to [log in to unmask]

Any queries about sending or receiving messages please send to the list owner [log in to unmask]

(Please send all commands to [log in to unmask] not the list or the moderators, and all requests for technical help to [log in to unmask], the general office helpline)