CliveH Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 (this should have appeared under the above but for some reason did not) Oh God this is getting boring! To quote single acts in isolation is ridiculous Freedom of Information Act 2000 2000 CHAPTER 36 ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS The Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal 1 to 17 then:- 18. The Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal. So just to be certain – Under the Freedom of Information Act – the Information Commissioner enforces the Data Protection Act that applies to both Public and Private Bodies. The Data Protection Act The Data Protection Act (DPA) gives a statutory right to request access to personal data to the person who is the subject of that data. You can view the Act online at the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website. OPSI: Data Protection Act 1998 Every organisation that deals with personal data has to inform the Information Commissioner of the purposes for which they use this data. The FCO is legally obliged to: • protect personal information • release it to the individual concerned if requested, and • amend or delete the information as appropriate. There are limited exemptions to releasing information (for example national security). All public authorities and private companies are bound by the Data Protection Act. You can find more information about the Data Protection Act on the Information Commissioners Office website: And even you Graham get yourself all twisted in knots when you quote:- "As the Introductory Text to FoIA states, it is "An Act to make provision for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them and to amend the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Public Records Act 1958; and for connected purposes."" You know, if you stopped trying to split hairs of a trivial nature and trying to be clever - this could be an enjoyable debate on an important subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hopesy Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Tracker, your Henry Kissinger impersonation didn't work *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJH Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 CliveH - 2009-06-24 4:15 PM Oh God this is getting boring! At least we agree on something :-D s18 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 merely changed the names of the Data Protection Commissioner and the Data Protection Tribunal. The reason was that they became responsible for administration of FoIA as well as DPA. So just to be certain – Under the Freedom of Information Act – the Information Commissioner enforces the Data Protection Act that applies to both Public and Private Bodies. The Data Protection Act The Data Protection Act (DPA) gives a statutory right to request access to personal data to the person who is the subject of that data. You can view the Act online at the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website. OPSI: Data Protection Act 1998 Every organisation that deals with personal data has to inform the Information Commissioner of the purposes for which they use this data. The FCO is legally obliged to: • protect personal information • release it to the individual concerned if requested, and • amend or delete the information as appropriate. There are limited exemptions to releasing information (for example national security). All public authorities and private companies are bound by the Data Protection Act. You can find more information about the Data Protection Act on the Information Commissioners Office website Yes, that's what I said, it is the Data Protection Act under which one registers as a Data Controller and which provides Subject Access Rights. Just because the ICO enforces FoIA as well as DPA doesn't mean that FoIA applies to private organisations as DPA does. To repeat what I said earlier The Introductory Text to FoIA states, it is "An Act to make provision for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them and to amend the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Public Records Act 1958; and for connected purposes." Note that this time I have highlighted the word "amend". FoIA amended the DPA, it did not replace it. The amendments are detailed in Part VII (ss 68 to 73) and in Schedule 6. The bodies to which FoIA applies are detailed in Schedule 1. All those bodies are public authorities. There are no private organisations in there. The only time that any private company is affected by FoIA (unlike DPA which applies across the board as previously covered) is when it qualifies as a person providing services for a public authority. That provision is there to prevent public authorities from hiding information by having it processed for them by a private company. If anyone is still unclear then perhaps reference to the ICO's own web site might help - the page What We Cover states plainly The Freedom of Information Act gives you the right to obtain information held by public authorities unless there are good reasons to keep it confidential. My highlighting of public authorities again. Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Hair splitting again Graham “Data Protection Act The Data Protection Act gives you the right to know what information is held about you, and sets out rules to make sure that this information is handled properly. Privacy and electronic communications The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations set out rules for people who wish to send you electronic direct marketing, for example, email and text messages. Freedom of Information Act The Freedom of Information Act gives you the right to obtain information held by public authorities unless there are good reasons to keep it confidential. Environmental Information Regulations The Environmental Information Regulations give you the right to obtain information about the environment held by public authorities, unless there are good reasons to keep it confidential. So the DPA applies to both Public and Private sectors. And the Information Commissioner oversees both the DPA and the FoIA and if I want to see what information a Local Authority holds on me then under the FoIA the DPA applies and I can get this information in the same way as I can from a Private Company but could not from a Public body until the FoIA amended the DPA to include “Public Bodies”. Good glad we got that cleared up! (lol) (lol) (lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJH Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 I don't know about hair splitting. I think my head will be splitting soon. CliveH - 2009-06-24 5:14 PM So the DPA applies to both Public and Private sectors. And the Information Commissioner oversees both the DPA and the FoIA and if I want to see what information a Local Authority holds on me then under the FoIA the DPA applies and I can get this information in the same way as I can from a Private Company but could not from a Public body until the FoIA amended the DPA to include “Public Bodies”. FoIA did not amend the DPA to include public bodies. The DPA 1998 (and its predecessor the DPA 1984) applied (as it still does) to both public and private sectors. The definition in S1(4) of Data Controller “data controller” means, subject to subsection (4), a person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed; makes no distinction between public and private. For the record, I spent my last few years in local government in charge of implementation of regulatory legislation. That was mainly DPA, FoIA, RIPA and HRA but it also included some other legislation. As a result I had to know the legislation forwards, backwards, upside down, inside out and standing on my head. If you don't believe what I am telling you (as you appear determined not to do) then why don't you cut and paste this query Can you please tell me how long the DPA has applied to both public & private sectors and whether or not FoIA amended the DPA to include “Public Bodies”. into the form Here and send it to the ICO. When you get a reply you can copy and paste it onto here. Until then let us do as Tracker suggested. Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Yes I agree - the specifics of the act is in many ways irrelevant. But as I say the two work in concert and ensure that we can get to the bottom of things regardless of the organisation being public or private. What my beef is is that far to many unelected "whatevers" are wanting to play God. The Times article I quoted outlines the frustration very well. And there is no doubt that many in the private sector feel they are hard done by. You only have to read the papers to see that. The feeling of being "abused" by boxticking so called public servants that do not listen and do not care and often seem to be working to an agenda that suits them and no one else is a very real and tangible issue. Graham - I hope you can see that my sense of frustration is very real because the issues are very real. And frankly your civil service "speak" did little to dissuade me that civil servants are anything other than how Winston Churchill described them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 And this just landed on my desk this morningfrom one of the "pinks":- ......................... Treasury spent £22m on financial stability legal services Nicola York - 24-Jun-2009 The LibDems have condemned the Treasury for paying City law firm Slaughter and May for these services saying the Government department are "babes in arms" when it comes to commercial contracts. LibDem Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott says: “This payment is simply mind blowing. It comes to £175,000 for every single equity partner of the law firm. “How can the Treasury defend allowing the firm to run up such an astronomical bill, the equivalent to 22,000 billable hours of partners’ time at £1,000 an hour? “Even if the financial crisis meant that there was no time to shop around at the start for the best legal deal, the Treasury should then have driven a much harder bargain, not left them like a fleet of legal taxis in Whitehall with their meters running for months on end. “The Treasury think they know it all, but they are babes in arms on commercial contracts ............................ So how do we all feel about the Civil Servants in the Treasury using our tax payers money to pay each and every Partner in a Law firm £1000 an hour for 22,000 hours? I would say that is worth more of an open debate so I will post it as a new thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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