‘Dubious’ use of the Freedom of Information act stopping access to files on Prince Andrew, researchers say

On the one hand, it’s deplorable. On the other hand, I can’t get too excited about an author not being able to write the book he has planned. (On the third hand, I did enjoy Lownie’s earlier book about Guy Burgess.) Reclosing files that were previously opened seems particularly dubious. Information should be withheld to protect national security, not to prevent official embarrassment.

Dubious in whose view?

Useless article, as it hasn’t even said precisely what the questions were, or which exemptions the authorities have applied and why.

I’ve worked in both FOI and data protection and can see that there *might* be an argument for s40(2) exemption – personal information – as Prince Andrew is no longer in line to the throne and has had many of his royal privileges removed. Also s40(1) if the individuals he was allegedly travelling with have a reasonable expectation of privacy related to those travels. So, although P. A. is a public figure what is the balance of the public interest -which is NOT the same as “the public is interested”? Or “the media thinks this will sell papers/be clickbait”. I suspect most of the public don’t really GAF. I’m only interested now because FOI got involved lol.

I am foreseeing an attempted re-run of the [Black Spider memos](https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/21.html) (2012), except that case doesn’t really set a precedent in my (non-legal) opinion, as it’s too different. Environmental Information Regs also applied to Prince (then) Charles’ correspondence, which was with ministers, bringing in the ‘policy’ exemption, plus the argument for disclosure – royalty meddling in politics, and the heir to the throne at that – had far more weight in the public interest.

Obviously, cost was applied by some authorities – if the cost limit is exceeded then that needs to be explained too – or the journalist needs to be smarter/more targeted about wording their questions.

The lesson for public authorities is to stop fucking around and fudging wording and be clear about what exemptions and why, and if cost limit is applied, why (e.g. retrieval of boxes from an off site archive; OCR on archived images to make them searchable as text, etc). FOIA has been around long enough now that there are no excuses for SOMEONE not being “qualified” to make a sensible decision – as the Guardian correctly states, someone being embarrassed by the disclosure is not a valid exemption. Authorities should also remember that slapping exemptions on information can cause a [Streisand effect](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Streisand-effect) … as we see here, I’m going to be paying some attention to this now because although FOI hasn’t been my job for a long time, I’m still a nerd …

“Rules for thee, but not for Me.” is the slogan of that household.

Edit: typo

Prince Andrew; showing us all just what an odious cunt he is.

That Freedom of information act ain’t so free whenever someone from the so called elite class has there reputation thrown into disrepute.