ICO slammed for 'unfair' approach to FoI appeal by UK judges Judges have slammed the Information Commissioner’s handling of an appeal against a Freedom of Information decision about a Syrian drone strike, saying it “fell well short” of expectations. Back in 2015, journalist Jenna Corderoy and the executive director of campaign group Rights Watch UK, Yasmine Ahmed, requested information …
Indeed
Lots of people would be keen to do the job properly (doubtless a few el Reg readers would like the chance)
Last thing govt (of whatever shade, their tone soon changes once in power) is anything remotely resembling accountability.
Similarly see the dubious "too expensive to meet teh request" / commercially confidential excuses also trotted out to avoid FOI requests
Honestly part of the problem is the workload for the ICO branches in the UK, they have a lot of staff but those are tied up in petty disagreements over frankly fairly meaningless nonsense half the time.
My fix isn't to increase staff or sideline Average Joe but to give the FOI act itself some teeth - monetary penalties which will mean those refusals carry real weight, right now they don't. I know my employer is less likely to refuse to answer (we rarely do anyway) or obfuscate needlessly when there's the potential for an appeal, following our own review process that may result in a penalty headed our way, however small - bad press is more of a threat but as it's "free" presently the public don't really give a toss, throw in the cost of a few operations being cancelled etc and that's much worse.
So true.
And you can bet that "lack of resources" doesn't/won't apply to her monthly paycheck and ultimately substantial pension.
I've had this debate with many a (local) council/public employee. If you have a senior or managerial role, with a substantial salary, nay package, and you have work that MUST be done you find the time to do it. If you must read it on a Saturday evening, rather than watching Strictly....then you should do so. Less of this "ah, but i've worked my 35 hour week already."
I trust she at least gets a written warning from this for failing to carry out a statutory duty.
ps lack of resources doesn't seem to stop them spending millions of scarce public resources on defending such inaction.
"Can't. Security, mate."
Now replacing "Can't. Data protection, mate" (which I've heard in the most LAUGHABLE of circumstances by people who haven't even read the DPA, nor have any idea what it's talking about).
[[I was once cited "data protection" by a bed company for sending out a free pack of missing parts to the shipping address that they'd shipped the bed to earlier that same day. Apparently, they could only send to the billing address (several miles away and not conducive to delivery of a bed in our new house) because of "data protection". P.S. Yes, they ended up shipping the parts to the right place after lots of yelling... sending a lorry out after-hours just to hand me a small bag of missing dowels and screws, so it never worked to their advantage to be obstructive and cost them a lot more than just the cost of the screws, including all future custom.]]
Sorry, but unless you can prove that releasing the entirety of the information requested somehow actually impacts national security in front of a court of law, I see no reason that you can't just be sanctioned into oblivion. Fine if you say "We can tell you this, but we've had to redact these parts", but to refuse the entire request? Nah.
You can't hide behind "national security" for everything vaguely military, because that's how you end up spending billions with golf-buddies because nobody was ever allowed to find out about it.
It's a very small start.
In your apparent eagerness to make some political point (?) you rather ignore the facts that one bunch of public sector employees hold another to account. That's how it should work.
And if I'd been Ms Denham, I'd have done the same. The state gets what the state wants. Democracy is mere window dressing. So if MoD said "section 23", I'd have said "section 23". Do you (or the NGO troublemakers here) really think that the government can or would release sensitive data like that just to honour the DPA?
@AC in your apparent eagerness to make a point you neglected to read the fact that the Judges believed efforts should have been made to disconnect the facts around political decision making from the secret intelligence that informed those decisions. "National Security Guv" is not enough of an excuse.
I look forward to the day they come for you, my only regret will be that I'll have long been carted off myself so I won't hear about it.
So if I request the personal details of all MI5 & MI6 agents this information should now be provided to the ICO to read and confirm whether it should remain secret?
Seems like the ICO's office is the best place for native Russian speakers to seek employment.
Read the damn article - She had the right to read it - not her office or officers. It would have been trivial to exercise that right in a secure location. In fact you can argue to do her job properly and to maintain public trust in her office she should be exercising that right on a semi regular basis. Something the court of appeal seems to be suggesting.
Instead, the judgement said that the “primary effect of disclosure of disaggregated information would be to allow those who disagree with the policy or its lawfulness to attack it” – and that this could happen without disclosure.
“We have concluded that as a properly informed public debate of the legal issues can be had without that disclosure the public interest balance comes down firmly in favour of non-disclosure," the judges said.
Errrmmm...call me Mister Thicko but how does one have a 'properly informed debate' if the basic facts are kept hidden?
Errrmmm...call me Mister Thicko but how does one have a 'properly informed debate' if the basic facts are kept hidden?
We cannot. But the judges have to give themselves the fig-leaf to cover themselves on this. Ultimately, military operations cannot be micro-managed or retrospectively judged in any democratic or open-disclosure manner for a good few decades. I don't like a lot of the military decisions taken by politicians over the past few decades, but I'm realistic enough to accept that the material facts cannot be disclosed until they are irrelevant to the original case, and other material instances.
' The only reason not to is to protect intelligence assets or their dupes or accomplices on the ground'
I'd argue protecting any information that may give away UK capabilities is also valid, and that covers a lot of ground. Open Source Intelligence can provide potential enemies with a lot of information and you can't take it back once they're actual enemies. Eg the legal advice on drone strikes may well give an indication of how effectively individuals can be identified, which reveals a lot about sensor effectiveness, tracking capabilities etc.
The legal advice on drone strikes could not possibly do such a thing.
The legal advice is whether or not it is likely to breach international law to send in the drones or actually pull the trigger on a weapon.
Legal advice regarding any military action presupposes that methods exist to make a positive identification of the target beyond some level of doubt. It will also specify the acceptable level of doubt - balance of probabilities, beyond reasonable doubt etc.
The most probable reason for not publishing it is that the legal advice wasn't followed.
'The most probable reason for not publishing it is that the legal advice wasn't followed.'
Because of course that couldn't be giving away the rules of engagement that your forces are operating under. Now would it be a good thing for any potential opposition to know what they are? For instance you may require x, y & z to be fulfilled before allowing a target to be engaged, the enemy then know if they avoid doing z they're safe, e.g. dropping their weapons as soon as they spot you.
It also indicates what you expect a drone can achieve in terms of identifying a target, this is definitely giving away your capability to anyone who can read between the lines. Not as a single piece of evidence but when combined with other pieces of open source intelligence you build up a picture of the true capability, not what the glossy brochure says it is.
this isn't just how Accountability Theatre works, it is how it is INTENDED to work. All they think they need is a smokescreen to make it look like grown ups are watching over the authoritarians on our behalf...
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