ICO Slams Government Departments Over FOI Failings

The Info Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has taken action towards two government departments for “persistent” failures to answer to Flexibility of Information (FOI) Act requests.

The Division for Global Trade (DIT) was issued with an enforcement action observe although the Department for Business, Strength and Industrial Method (BEIS) was handed a exercise advice following they unsuccessful to reply to FOI requests in time.

From January to March 2022, the DIT issued late responses to over 50% of requests, a breach of sections 1 and 10 of the law and the worst response figures of any central authorities section, in accordance to official stats.

Response situations declined final calendar year regardless of there getting no increase in the quantity of FOI requests or mentioned resource difficulties at the DIT. Inner system failings ended up to blame, the ICO explained.

Beneath the phrases of the enforcement discover, the section have to now respond to any outstanding requests more mature than 20 working times, in just 35 calendar times of the enforcement notice. It is also needed to develop and publish an motion plan formalizing steps to mitigate any future delays.

If it does not comply, the DIT could be identified in contempt of court docket.

BEIS also unsuccessful to reply to many FOI requests inside the statutory time restrict, whilst it has experienced a 55% surge in requests considering that 2020.

Whilst its failings have been also down mostly to bad inner procedures, the department’s reaction was extra proactive than DIT’s. It engaged “positively” with the ICO and shared data on the actions it was using to make improvements to performance.

For this motive, the regulator only handed it a apply recommendation.

Although the suggestion is not enforceable by itself, failure to enhance performance in the coming months could lead to an enforcement detect remaining issued.

This is the very first time in seven yrs the ICO has been compelled to issue an FOI enforcement notice and marks the start out of a far more proactive regulatory routine, not too long ago appointed information and facts commissioner John Edwards said.

“Accountability and transparency in the perform of public authorities is essential to democracy and it is the ICO’s position to make sure that people’s right to obtain data is protected,” he added.

“I suggest public authorities to acquire observe and master lessons from the motion we have taken today, as we will be creating increased use of our powers under the act to travel very good exercise and compliance.”

The UK’s privacy and facts safety regulator is greater regarded for implementing the GDPR/Knowledge Safety Act 2018 and nuisance advertising and marketing laws.

Some pieces of this short article are sourced from:
www.infosecurity-journal.com