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UK Freedom of Information Act Comes Into Force
norfolkboy writes "The UK Freedom of Information Act comes into force today, 1st January 2005. Under the new law, passed by Parliament in 2000, all citizens will have information to any non-exempt information from ANY English, Scottish, or Welsh public sector authority or institution, and the information must be presented within twenty days."
You might be able to use disposable media for an individual case, or a single agency, but the scalability issues that this implies mean that you will need a convenient, inexpensive medium that is also online.
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
(scene: within a government office)
Me: I plan to take advantage of this new "Freedom of Information Act" straight away! Hello! Under the Freedom of Information Act, effective today, I would like to see all you can give me on Foo.
Government Representative: 'ello there. I believe information on Foo is exempt. Let me see.. yes. Yes it is. Sorry.
Me: All right then. How about Bar?
GR: Hmm, that's in volume 2. Let me see. Nope, exempt, can't let you see it.
Me: Just a peek?
GR: No.
Me: Any blank pages I could squint at?
GR: No, sorry, I can't even tell you if any pages are blank. It's exempt information, you see.
Me: Okay how about Baz? You must have *reams* of data on Baz.
GR: 'fraid not sir, it was made exempt just this morning. Rather a funny story actually, Smith here had finished making three copies of it and then Jones here said it had been made exempt. But then I bent over the shredder, and you'll notice I'm not wearing my tie today, because just at that momen--
Me: ALL RIGHT, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Can you at least tell me what subjects people have asked about today under Freedom of Information Act? We've got Foo, Bar, Baz.. anybody asked about Qux?
GR: I'm sorry sir, I don't know what you're talking about. Foo?
Me: But we were *just talking* about Foo, don't you remember all that?
GR: That information is exempt sir. Says so on page.. wait a minute I can't tell you about the memo we got. Exempt, you know.
Me: What *can* you give me?
GR: Oh! Well I've got a lovely pamphlet on the Freedom of Information Act! You can have as many of those as you want. Chock full of information! Completely non-exempt. Quite a good read, I'd say. Tells you all you need to know. Here you go.
Me: What?? This is a pamphlet on dealing with terrorist attacks, except someone has replaced the words "terrorist attacks" with "freedom of information act" using a crayon. It doesn't even make sense: "In case of freedom of information act, you should keep a supply of tinned food on hand".
GR: Oh yes. Got mine right here under the desk!
Me: It's time for the big foot to come down now and end this skit, isn't it? Gone on too long without a proper ending hasn't it?
GR: Yes sir, indeed... blimey, the wife! Fancy some spam before we go?
I assume works created by the UK government will still be subject to crown copyright, though. So you'll have access to the information, but you can't republish it.
you'd think the editors would proofread a submission
You must be new here.
No wait, I see you have a 5 digit UID. In that case, you must live in a hole with a blindfold on.
My first request: What exactly IS the secret to royal breeding? I really want to know how you came up with such a perfect moral and physical specimin as the Prince of Wales. Such perfection cannot arise in the inferior non-noble classes, surely!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The UK Government (lovely honest people that they are) have been having a paper shredding and email deletion frenzy ahead of this law coming into force.
Of course it's just a coincidence - they just thought they would clean up all the old records by destroying lots of them. Nothing to see here, move along.
I think they were trying to get an early jump on the "Worst article summary of 2005" award.
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
all citizens will have information to any non-exempt information
Key word: non-exempt
In other words, your citizens will have access to any information you decide to allow them access to. Very often, this results in releases of documents that are 90% blotted out, except for useless information like a few instances of "the", "and", etc.
Not to mention, you have to know about a thing before you can even request information on said thing. This has not done wonders in the US.
Some countries have had a powerful, constitutional freedom of information act since 1766.
Thats true, but pr0n is faster and safer. :)
Sorry, replyed to wrong post on wrong forum, please mod down.
That civil servants/govenrment departments are not carrying around old/obselete/dated/inappropriate/inaccrurate data.
The fact that this act has forced a house cleaning is a good thing, you've fallen for politically motived spin. DDont forget previous governments had this data, but you had no right to ensure it was accurate or relevent.
The BBC has an recently launched an interesting new area of it's website devoted to public involvement in politics, called iCan. As you might expect, it contains an excellent plain english guide to what you can and can't get information on, and how to go about it here
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
The problem is that you still have to address the appropriate agency, learn the location of the forms and manage to fill them out, then discover the actual location of the desk where you can hand them to some clerk who would really rather ponder how you got through the preliminaries, and how to improve them so neither you nor anyone else will ever achieve the feat again; only to have your request misplaced, mishandled, misdirected until the day when your friend drags you off to the put explaining that the end of the world is here!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
for those selling black permanent markers and xerox machines
vodka, straight up, thank you!
I'm the author of 'Your Right to Know' and have put up a website to go along with the book: www.yrtk.org. You'll find lots of advice and various articles on FOI issues here (and links to buy the book, of course). I'm making a number of requests myself and would be interested to hear from anyone who sends out a request whether under the freedom of information act or the new Environmental Information Regulations. Even if your request is rejected, I'd like to what lame excuse was given. I plan on collecting an archive of such rejections in order to create a Hall of Shame.
erm WRONG!
If a UK public body holds the record *somewhere* in it, the body is obliged to find that record within the time limit.
And the request can be made to ANY officer of the body.
And, joy of joys, the ICO is supposed to be administering it.
At least this time their web site acknowledges the fact. When the UK anti-junkmail regs were introduced at the back end of 2003 it took them a few months to realise that they were supposed to be involved, and until about July 2004 to respond to any issues raised in any sort of timely fashion.
Still, it is better than nothing, and we've still enough elements of a free press here to start asking the awkward questions.
Just 4 steps and you can send your request by fax, email or good old fashioned letter to any of 40ish contacts, ranging from the Treasury to the Office of Fair Trading, from the Met Office to the Home Office.
With the help of the list of what is exempt (on the BBC's iCan page):
* Information about civil or criminal investigations, including police investigations
Sorry, we can't tell you if the person counting the votes is under an investigation for bribery.
* Information that would endanger the safety or the physical or mental health of another
Even if he was, we can't give you any information about him - he might get hurt in prison!
* Trade secrets and information that might affect the commercial interests of an organisation or another person
We can't tell you who he's chummy with and might be getting bribes from, either!
* Information about the formulation of government policy, how a minister's private office works, ministerial communications and any advice received by a minister. This applies to the Welsh Assembly and central government
Sorry, we also can't tell you how the person counting the votes would do it if he wasn't being bribed.
* Information that may prejudice the work of the organisation in auditing the accounts and efficiency of another public body
Sorry, we can't even give you the phone number of the Commissioner to complain to about voting fraud.
* Information intended for future publication
We can't even tell you about how such investigations work - what if he wants to write a book?
And of course, even if that's not sufficient:
* Qualified exemption: The public interest in withholding the information is greater than the public interest in releasing it
Well, since the public outcry of workers protesting vote fraud would hurt the economy and business of Big Corportation X, and thereby damage the public interest, I'm afraid I can't give you any such information. In fact, I'll have to lock you up indefinitely...
Ok, and for an encore, let's see what I can do once I put on my tin foil hat...
--LWM