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UK Freedom of Information Act Comes Into Force 42

Posted by michael from the only-as-good-as-the-enforcement dept.
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."
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UK Freedom of Information Act Comes Into Force More

UK Freedom of Information Act Comes Into Force

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  • Spinning disk anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by macz ( 797860 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @08:35PM (#11235731)
    This is going to mean a boom for the storage industry. There is no way you can keep this content on tape and pull it back in the time frame specified at the scale that this will grow to.

    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.

    • Not really, the U.S. has had similar laws for quite some time, and their filing system isn't all digital like you may be thinking.

      Also, they've got enough time built in to the law(minimum 20 days) that they can just charge a fee and run any papers through a copier.

      • Re:Spinning disk anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by macz ( 797860 )
        Ahhh, but 20 (business days) from the initial request is a shorted deadline than our government has (ours used to be 60 days, but it might have gone to 30 days back in the mid eighties IANL)

        The clock starts upon receipt of the request, and must make its way through myriad, draconian bureaucracies before the actual request to pull the info, from a shelf, or off site is issued.

        The actual window to pull this data is much smaller that 20 business days might suppose. The only thing this lacks are serious con

    • This is going to mean a boom for the storage industry

      Well it would be except the UK government just coincidently ordered that government agencies purge all old email -- nothing to do with this law, you see, just a desire to keep everything tidy!

      Whilst "deleted emails will be stored on back-up systems [theage.com.au], these have been declared off limits to freedom of information requests because of the cost of accessing them".

      Tony Blair and David Blunkett: Labour's way of emulating Dubya Bush and John Ashcroft.

  • Monty Python's Flying Saturday Night Boredom (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 01, 2005 @08:39PM (#11235740)
    (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?

  • Still copyrighted, though? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @09:00PM (#11235807) Journal
    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.
    • Can the UK government own copyright? I think in the US the government's works are owned by the people and automatically in public domain. Of course I have no clue about the UK because i live in the US but whatever.
    • It's true that the UK has draconian Crown Copyright laws but it has been established that releasing information under the Freedom of information act does not violate copyright law. However, it does stop you using and re-using the information you get in whatever way you want. It is worth noting, however, that Her Majesty's Stationery Office (the body that enforces Crown Copyright) has not brought any cases to court for violating Crown Copyright in their sole name. It is more common for departments to launch

  • My first request (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @10:05PM (#11236036)
    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!

  • UK.gov shredding frenzy (Score:5, Informative)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Saturday January 01, 2005 @10:37PM (#11236119) Journal
    The UK Government (lovely honest people that they are) have been having a paper shredding and email deletion frenzy [bbc.co.uk] 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.

    • 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.
    • I guess the mods all have hangovers, the link in the above "Score:5, Informative" post actually points to a story that says there is "No hard evidience" that there has been a paper shredding and e-mail deletion frenzy.

      Of course this might just mean that the UK Govt are very good indeed at shredding stuff...
    • The official line is that they're cleaning up as part of a process to make the data more easily accessible. This is perfectly reasonable if true. I like the fact that the government isn't wasting time storing heaps of obsolete usless information.

  • Big deal. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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.

  • Offentlighetsprincipen (Score:4, Informative)

    by LeftOfCentre ( 539344 ) on Sunday January 02, 2005 @01:44AM (#11236774)
    Some countries [sweden.se] have had a powerful, constitutional freedom of information act [lysator.liu.se] since 1766.

  • BBC iCan page has plenty of information (Score:4, Informative)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Sunday January 02, 2005 @08:04AM (#11237751) Homepage Journal
    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 [bbc.co.uk]
  • 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 e
  • for those selling black permanent markers and xerox machines
  • 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 a
  • All these new rights are all well and good, but still damn difficult to understand and make good use of. So...Friends of the Earth have put together this online tool to help people get hold of information from the powers that be - http://www.righttoknowonline.org/ [righttoknowonline.org]

    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 [bbc.co.uk]):

    * 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 i
    • > * Trade secrets and information that might affect the commercial interests of an organisation or another person
      This is particularly insidious. Surely tax payers should be able to find out how their money is spent?

      >* Information about the formulation of government policy...
      So we won't find out whether the Attorney General said "The Iraq War is legal" or not, at least not for another thirty years.

      >* Qualified exemption: The public interest in withholding the information is greater than the pub

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