FOI disclosure of personal data: balancing of interests

In June this year I blogged about the case of AB v A Chief Constable (Rev 1) [2014] EWHC 1965 (QB). In that case, Mr Justice Cranston had held that, when determining whether personal data is being or has been processed “fairly” (pursuant to the first principle of Schedule One of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA))

assessing fairness involves a balancing of the interests of the data subject in non-disclosure against the public interest in disclosure [¶75]

I was surprised by this reading in of an interests balance to the first principle, and said so in my post. Better people than I disagreed, and I certainly am even less sure now than I was of the correctness of my view.

In any case, the binding authority of the High Court rather trumps my meanderings, and it is cited in a recent decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) in support of a ruling that the London Borough of Merton Council must disclose, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), an email sent to a cabinet member of that council by Stephen Hammond MP. The Tribunal, in overturning the decision of the Information Commissioner, considered the private interests of Mr Hammond, including the fact that he had objected to the disclosure, but felt that these did not carry much weight:

we do not consider anything in the requested information to be particularly private or personal and that [sic] this substantially weakens the weight of interest in nondisclosure…We accept that Mr Hammond has objected to the disclosure, which in itself carries some weight as representing his interests. However, asides from an expectation of a general principle of non-disclosure of MP correspondence, we have not been given any reason for this. We have been given very little from the Commissioner to substantiate why Members of Parliament would have an expectation that all their correspondence in relation to official work remain confidential

and balanced against these were the public interests in disclosure, including

no authority had been given for the statement [in the ICO’s decision notice] that MPs expect that all correspondence to remain confidential…[;]…withholding of the requested information was not compatible with the principles of accountability and openness, whereby MPs should subject themselves to public scrutiny, and only withhold information when the wider public interest requires it…[;]…the particular circumstances of this case [concerning parking arrangements in the applicant’s road] made any expectation of confidentiality unreasonable and strongly indicated that disclosure would be fair

The arguments weighed, said the Tribunal, strongly in favour of disclosure.

A further point fell to be considered, however: for processing of personal data to be fair and lawful (per the first data protection principle) there must be met, beyond any general considerations, a condition in Schedule Two DPA. The relevant one, condition 6(1) requires that

The processing is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests pursued by the data controller or by the third party or parties to whom the data are disclosed, except where the processing is unwarranted in any particular case by reason of prejudice to the rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of the data subject

It has to be noted that “necessary” here in the DPA imports a human rights proportionality test and it “is not synonymous with ‘indispensable’…[but] it implies the existence of a ‘pressing social need'” (The Sunday Times v United Kingdom (1979) 2 EHRR 245). The Tribunal, in what effectively was a reiteration of the arguments about general “fairness”, accepted that the condition would be met in this case, citing the applicant’s arguments, which included the fact that

disclosure is necessary to meet the public interest in making public what Mr Hammond has said to the Council on the subject of parking in Wimbledon Village, and that as an elected MP, accountable to his constituents, disclosure of such correspondence cannot constitute unwarranted prejudice to his interests.

With the exception of certain names within the requested information, the Tribunal ordered disclosure.  Assessing “fairness” now, following Mr Justice Cranston, and not following me, clearly does involve balancing the interests of the data subject against the public interest in disclosure.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.