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Freedom of Information (FOI)

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is “challenged with the task of reversing the working premise that everything is secret, unless otherwise stated, to a position where everything is public unless it falls into specified excepted cases” (Lord Chancellor’s first Annual Report on the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000; November 2001).

The Freedom of Information Act was passed on 30th November 2000. It gives a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public authorities, sets out exemptions from that right and places a number of obligations on public authorities.

Subject to the exemptions, any person who makes a request to a public authority for that information, must be informed whether the public authority holds that information. If it does, that information must be supplied, subject to certain conditions.

Every public authority is required to adopt and maintain a publication scheme setting out how it intends to publish the different classes of information it holds, and whether there is a charge for the information.

Two codes of practice (sec 45 and sec 46) issued under the Act will provide guidance to public authorities about responding to requests for information, and records management. The Data Protection Act 1998 and the Public Records Act 1958 will be amended. The Act is enforced by the Information Commissioner, and will be brought into force in two parts, with full implementation by January 2005. Publication schemes are now being phased in; individual rights of access to information will come into force across all public authorities in January 2005.

The Act which came into force in January 2005 gives applicants two related rights:

• The right to be told whether the information exists
• The right to receive the information (and where possible, in the manner requested, i.e. as a copy or summary, or the applicant may ask to inspect a record)

In addition, the Information Commissioners office has suggested that Authorities implement a retention/disposal schedule for information, which can be integrated into the FOI publication schedule. This would set out timescales and criteria for retaining and deleting documents, e-mails etc, to prevent the haphazard destruction or retention of data.

As you are aware, the current email server environment the authority uses allows users to delete emails permanently, this could be content required for FOI request. This content may be required under the Act or possibly for legal proceedings. But this content is being destroyed either accidentally or intentionally.

With the volumes of email received per day/week and the unstructured and unsortable nature of email, the only way LA's can comply with FOI is to retain an audit copy of all the email for specified retention period.

BIIC are pleased to announce a solution, which helps LAs comply with FOI Act. Cryoserver, is an appliance that makes an audit copy of every email sent to, from and around an organisation.

The data is held in an encrypted tamper-evident environment that can be searched incredibly quickly. You can search for a keyword, perhaps the fulfilment of a FOI request across the repository or HR can pull up an individual users mailbox, of every single email they've sent or received since the day they joined the organisation, all in 1/5000th of a second. While at the same time increasing that users rights to privacy and confidentiality.