Since it is a Friday, I raise a curiosity that relates to a FOI request to all information on John Lennon held by Special Branch. Naturally being Special Branch, the applicant no doubt received all that extra special loving care and attention we expect of such public authorities.
The Branch told him that he could not get the requested details because of the application of exemptions relating to sections 23(5) (information supplied by or relating to national security bodies), S.24(2) (national security), S.31(3) (investigations), S.38(2) (health and safety) and finally S.40(5)(b)(i) (personal information). After internal review, the matter went to the ICO for a Decision Note (FS50154349).
Hang on a second – the “personal data” exemption and “information about John Lennon” in the same sentence. OOPS! “Houston. We have a problem!”.
The ICO’s staff soon asked Special Branch to specify “to whom this personal data would relate” and “which of the data protection principles it believed would be breached through disclosure and to explain how this breach would occur”. The ICO helpfully added that “given that for information to constitute personal data it must relate to a living individual” and that even “the confirmation or denial (that information about John Lennon was held) ...would not constitute the personal data of John Lennon”.
No reasoned response was given to the ICO’s impertinent question so he concluded that the exemption was not engaged, adding for good measure “Had the request been for information relating to a living individual the stance of the public authority may have been stronger”.
Now everybody in the know realises that Elvis is alive and well and living anonymously in Barnsley; it also well known that Elvis was an informant for Edgar J Hoover in the 1960s. That is why, I have concluded, that Special Branch would be right to withhold personal information on Elvis if there were to be a similar FOI request to his personal details.
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