Who said what?
When someone expresses an opinion about you, should you have the right to know who is saying it as well as what they are saying?
The Information Commissioner has just issued an against the Department for Communities and Local Government. This instructs the DCLG to release more material in response to an individual's data protection request for information held about themselves, including the identities of the officials who have expressed opinions about the individual.
The Commissioner : 'it is reasonable in the circumstances to release third party information without the consent of the individuals because they were acting in a professional rather than a private capacity'.
I don't normally venture into data protection matters, but this is interesting and important from the FOI viewpoint too.
Public authorities often try to withhold the identity of officials who have written documents released under FOI, on the grounds that this is personal information. This runs counter to the Commissioner's that 'information which is about someone acting in an official or work capacity should normally be provided'.
This latest decision from the ICO confirms that the same principle applies across data protection and freedom of information. The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has often argued that it makes sense for him to handle both DP and FOI complaints to ensure consistency and avoid the sort of conflicts that have arisen in other countries which have different commissioners for the two topics. Perhaps this case illustrates the strength of this argument.
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