I am sure that members of this list will have already thought about the issues outlined below, I’d be grateful for clarification of what the legal and policy position is/should be.

Suppose I work on contemporary fiction and have specialised on the work of a famous living author. So a) my research notes contain material concerning a living individual without any form of informed consent having been given.

Suppose I hear a radio interview with this author and take notes, and transcribe some of the things I think he/she has said (I may make mistakes in this).

I then publish something inflammatory about the author (who I have never met).

On the face of it they can put in a FoI request for my research notes about them. Are there Data Protection exemptions about the public activities of public figures?

NB I had thought about writing this scenario about a fictional author I was going to call “Martin Amis”, but in the end decided not to (thought better of it).  Do I now have data on any of the many living Martin Amis’s? As I understand it I/ the FoI officer must make a judgement that the occurrence of “Martin Amis” on this page does not refer to the requester so need not be delivered.

best wishes

davidz