Individuals working on behalf of political parties

Information Standards Freedom of Information Response

Our Ref: FoI 03-19

05th February 2019

Freedom of Information Act 2000

I am writing to confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission holds the information you requested on 8th January 2018. Your request asked for the following information:

“I would like to request the names of all individuals working on behalf of political parties but funded and paid for by the NI Assembly.”

The information you have requested has not been provided because it is exempt under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for the reasons given in the attached notice.

You have the right to request that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission formally review this decision and if you wish to do so, please write to me at the above address.

If after such an internal review you are still unhappy with the response, you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, who will undertake an independent review.

If you have any queries do not hesitate to contact me. Please remember to quote our reference number.

Yours sincerely

Information Standards and Data Protection Officer

 

Appendix A

REASONS FOR NON DISCLOSURE

Disclosure of the information requested has not been provided because it is exempt under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOIA).

Section 40 of the FOIA provides that

(1) Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject.

(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if—

(a) it constitutes personal data which does not fall within subsection (1),

and

(b) the first, second or third condition below is satisfied.

(3A) The first condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act—

(a) would contravene any of the data protection principles, or

(b) would do so if the exemptions in section 24(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (manual unstructured data held by public authorities) were disregarded.

(3B) The second condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene Article 21 of the GDPR (general processing: right to object to processing).

4(A) The third condition is that— 

(a) on a request under Article 15(1) of the GDPR (general processing: right of access by the data subject) for access to personal data, the information would be withheld in reliance on provision made by or under section 15, 16 or 26 of, or Schedule 2, 3 or 4 to, the Data Protection Act 2018, or

(b) on a request under section 45(1)(b) of that Act (law enforcement processing: right of access by the data subject), the information would be withheld in reliance on subsection (4) of that section.

The information you requested is personal data as defined by section 3(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018. The reason the information is personal data is that it relates to individuals who are living and can be identified from the information, as defined by section 3 (3) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Under Section 40 of the FOIA there is an exemption from disclosure of personal data in certain circumstances. Section 40(2) provides that any information to which a request for information relates is exempt information if it constitutes personal data which does not fall within subsection (1), and satisfies any of the conditions set out in section 40(3) and 40(4). The first condition in section 40(3)(a) is that disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene any of the data protection principles.

The reason the information is personal data is that it relates to individuals who are living and can be identified from the information, as defined by section 3 (3) of the Data Protection Act 2018. It is our view that disclosure of the information would contravene the first Data Protection Principle.

The Data Protection Principles are set out in Article 5(1) of the GDPR and section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

The First Data Protection Principle states that the processing of personal data must be:

a. processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject;

Article 6 of the GDPR provides that such processing is lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the conditions therein applies. It is our view that none of the conditions in Article 6 of the GDPR can be met and we have therefore concluded that processing the information by disclosing it to you would contravene the First Data Protection Principle.

The First Data Protection Principle states that personal data shall be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject, and must satisfy one of the conditions set out in Article 6 of the GDPR. In assessing fairness, the reasonable expectations of the individuals concerned and consequences of disclosure to the individuals was considered. The individuals concerned would not expect that this information would be disclosed. Disclosure of the withheld information would be unfair and would therefore contravene the First Data Protection Principle.

Section 40 of the FOIA is one of eight absolute exemptions in the Act. In assessing whether an absolute exemption applies, the only question is whether the information falls within the category. A public interest test is not applied. We are therefore satisfied that we have acted in accordance with the requirements of the FOIA.

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