Media Law & Ethics - Lecture 4, 05/02/14

Freedom of information;

The world we live in now has all of our details on a file, the idea is to hand over any personal information and the organisation receiving this information is required to keep this safe and private. It must only be used for the purposes that they hold it, for example the address will be accessed if sending a letter. Data protection laws are required to ensure that any sensitive data is kept away from the public domain. Essentially you can only gain access to information about yourself, if someone holds information that could be wrong or damaging about you then data protection comes in to effect.

Official secrets Act – If you are working in the ministry of defence, you cannot reveal plans or anything that is particularly sensitive, for example the protection of things that are relevant to defend country/official secrets.

Confidentiality – protection of information, this is basically an understanding of two people, for example you and your GP. 
A recent report regarding the NHS which is attempting to recruit medical researchers who want to analyse peoples medical data so they can take samples from people with particular conditions in order to try and figure out a way to cure these particular diseases. It will allow them to examine, compare and analyse hard data however the problem is people won’t want their medical records read.

FOI act;

Any person can request (and receive) information from a public body (approx. 130,000), subject to certain exemptions. The Government explains how the act is crucial to how they run the country because of its accountability. They need to be accountable so they can have legitimacy. The government cannot make you do things or force you to follow the law. The government needs you to follow the law of your own accord, which is effectively a quietly understood contract between you and the government.

Does not only apply to paper files – also information on video, tape and electronically. The courts are quite old fashioned about mobile text messages as they are a  new technology; you would have to argue your case to the rights of this information.

There are roughly around a 100,000 requests a year, costing £34 million, however only 12% of these requests are from journalists. When you ask for information you don’t have to say you are a journalist or use your own name. Politicians are more likely to make more FOI requests.  

The Freedom of Information was a New Labour policy objective (2005) Manifesto from Tony Blair. Government parties when they are in opposition find it highly attractive to have an FOI act, which enables them to sell scandalous stories about opposing parties.

“Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in government and defective policy decisions” – Tony Blair 1995

A programme known as News Night, focused on the Freedom of Information act which brought to light an interview between Tony Blair and  Andrew Mars; during this interview Blair accepted his faults and regretted his decisions to set up an FOI act. Blair admitted to darker secrets being revealed about him and his party members, describing them as “skeletons in his closet” He was summoned to testify about Iraq.
Normally you will tape record everything you do, but most prime ministers when they hold meetings will have someone there to mimic the meetings  (will write the meeting down) Blair would hold and discuss his meetings without ANY recordings.  

Freedom of Information;

•          Promoting accountability and transparency
•          Furthering the understanding of and participation in the public debate of issues of the day
•          Allowing individuals and companies to understand decisions

FOI gives you the legal right of access to any piece of information held by most public authorities, unless there is a VALID REASON.

How to make an FOI request;

• A FOI should be in writing. Email is fine; on the plus side it’s free!

Why can they say No;

•          If it costs more than £600 or (£450 for smaller authorities).
•         Or if the information is EXEMPT, but you do not have to accept this decision.

There are two kinds of exemption;

•          ABSOLUTE (e.g. security services, court records). They have no duty to confirm or deny that any information exists.
• ·        QUALIFIED (e.g. ministerial communications, commercial confidentiality)

Where the information is covered by a qualified exemption, you should still be given it if the balance of the ‘public interest’ favours disclosure. (Public Interest Test)

• PUBLIC INTEREST: in the public’s interest, whether it affects their health or exposes hypocrisy, it is not just merely interesting to the public.

For example;

How many NHS nurses have criminal convictions? (Public interest)

How many NHS nurses are divorced? (Merely of interest)

QUALIFIED EXEMPTION (23 possible exemptions)

Under a qualified exemption information can be withheld where ‘the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information’.

•          Likely to jeopardise national security
•          Likely to prejudice defence or international relations
•          Information intended for future publication
•         Which prejudices the economic interests of the UK
•          Which might prejudice law enforcement
•          Communications with the royal family – Prince Charles is an environmentalist; he was sending letters to government ministers to influence policy. FOI put in to see the letters that were sent, the FOI act refused.
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How long does it take?

The public authority must respond ‘promptly’, which means 20 days. Then 40 days if they need to consider the public interest. Remember there is no need to explain what the information is for – there is no distinction between the media and ordinary people.

What if they say No?

•          Internal review – meeting amongst themselves to discuss the FOI
•          Information commissioner – 6 months for the information commissioner to investigate
•          Informational tribunal – another 6 months of investigations
•          High court

An example of this is Heather Brooke regarding the expenses scandal.

In order to get to the information regarding the expenses scandal, Heather Brooks had to go through each stage and eventually won her FOI case which was then sold to the media.

Update: The Government is considering adding more limits to the FOI Act: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/217298/gov-resp-justice-comm-foi-act.pdf

Essentially the government wants to:

•          Limit groups or individuals making too many requests where they become too ‘burdensome’
•          Lower the limits on costs, leading to many more requests being refused.
•          Include other factors – such as the time taken to release information or not – into the cost calculations.

Needless to say press organisations and freedom of speech campaigners have been very critical of the plans.