[reposted from LinkedIn]
For a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to be a valid one it must, under section 8, be in writing, describe the information requested and state “the name of the applicant” and an address for correspondence.
Does the name have to be the person’s real name?
“Yes”, says Judge Griffin (uncontroversially) when striking out an appeal to the First Tier Tribunal.
In the case, a person purporting to be “Simon Shannon” had made a (purported) request for information to the Civil Aviation Authority, which was partly refused, on the basis that the specific information was not held. “Simon Shannon” then made a (purported) complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office who issued a (purported) decision notice upholding the refusal.
“Simon Shannon” then brought a (purported) appeal before the Tribunal. In his application he listed his address as “The Houses of Parliament”. This led the ICO to ask the Tribunal to direct that “Simon Shannon” give his real address. This then led to “Simon Shannon” applying to have the purported appeal struck out and for permission to lodge a new appeal in the name of Thomas Deacon – his real name.
The problem with this was, the judge pointed out, that as s8 FOIA requires that a request state “the” name of the applicant, rather than “a” name, this means that a pseudonym will not suffice, and a request made in the name of a pseudonym, as had been the case with “Simon Shannon”, was not a valid request. And there is a reason this matters:
“When an applicant uses a pseudonym to make a request to a public authority
that authority is deprived of the opportunity to consider whether those parts
of the Act [such as when considering whether requests are vexatious, or whether aggregated costs of two or more requests exceed the appropriate limit] to which the applicant’s identity is relevant apply to the request.”
It followed that, as the request was not a valid request, the ICO “unknown to him, had no power to consider a complaint under section 50 of the Act, nor to issue a decision notice”. And it further followed that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction – it could not simply permit the appeal to be remade in the person’s real name, because there was no ICO decision capable of being appealed.
None of this is especially new to FOI practitioners and lawyers, but the judgment is a clear and helpful explainer of the issues.
The views in this post (and indeed most posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.
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