The ICO is to make changes to the information a public authority is required to release proactively in its FOI publication scheme.

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The Protection of Freedoms Act, 2012 achieved royal assent on 01 May 2012.

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The Information Rights Tribunal has ruled that the names of three junior members of staff who dealt with complaints made to the Financial Services Authority should have been disclosed as part of a Freedom of Information request. 

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The Information Rights Tribunal recently ruled that the names of three junior members of staff who dealt with complaints made to the Financial Services Authority should have been disclosed as part of a Freedom of Information request.  

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This guidance is intended for university or college archives dealing with bequests of research papers and provides information on the legal issues which need to be considered in particular where an institution intends to digitise and add documents to an institutional repository.

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Where research papers are bequeathed to an institution copyright, data protection and freedom of information are relevant legal areas to consider, and the issues are summarised in the FAQ.

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Our Mobile Technologies and the Law webcast (streamed live on 14 March 2012) can now be accessed in captioned, bite-sized segments.  

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The Department for Education is to appeal the ICO decision which ordered Michael Gove to release information contained in private emails.

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Emails although sent from a staff member's private email account can still be subject to FOIA.  

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JISC infoNet has published research on the true cost to an HE institution of processing an FOI request.

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The Information and Records Management Society is pleased to announce that the 15th IRMS Conference will take place from Sunday 27th to Tuesday 29th May 2012 in Brighton.

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Whatever the mobile technology use, there are legal issues to consider from the outset of your project and this is a checklist of the main areas to consider in your planning process.

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A recent ICO decision confirms that an email, sent from a private email account, is subject to FOI and should be disclosed.

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Durham University breached the Data Protection Act after disclosing personal information on its website.

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The latest results highlight the impact that the Data Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations have had on the sector.

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Universities UK failed to convince the government that research data should be exempt from release.

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The ECJ held that the owner of an online social network cannot be obliged to install a general filtering system.

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This guidance is intended for staff in sixth form colleges and aims to provide a helpful overview to key legal issues relevant to sixth form colleges in the development and use of ICT.

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This guidance is intended for staff in UK colleges and universities who may be asked to provide course materials in response to a freedom of information request.

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Html version of JISC Legal's guidance on "Release of Course Materials Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000"

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Scottish Parliament to approve the appointment of Rosemary Agnew as the new Scottish Information Commissioner.

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The new ICO  guidance is a plain English guide aimed at public authorities and provides a basic overview of the law.

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A tribunal found that where emails are deleted but still exist on back-up servers, they are nonetheless considered to be ‘held’ by an organisation and subject to FOI legislation. 

 

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Under the Freedom of information Act 2000 (FOIA) at s.1(1) any person making a request for information held by a public authority is entitled to have it provided to him.  Most colleges and universities are public authorities under the FOIA and student coursework held by a university or college would be ‘information held’.

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The fees regulations under FOI broadly cover 2 areas- (1) Fee charges for information provided through the publication scheme and (2) fee charges for specific information requests

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A new special report to the Scottish Parliament discusses the current state of FOI in Scotland.

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This guidance is intended for staff in independent specialist colleges that provide further education or training for learners with varying learning needs due to disability issues.

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The ICO has updated guidance on how public electronic communications service providers should respond to security breaches.

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Where an FOI request is made which covers course materials, colleges and universities may be reluctant to release these, as they are often seen as part of the institution’s assets...(cont'd)

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The ICO describes its approach to security compliance, information rights outcomes sought and current fields of action.

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The blog post at http://inforrm.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/law-and-media-tweets-and-tweeters-updated-105-people-to-follow-judith-townend/ gives a u...

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Colleges and universities have the opportunity to provide evidence of their own experiences in working with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

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The UK Government has highlighted the cost burden which may be placed on public authorities in complying with some FOI requests for information.

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The ICO has published new guidance on access to official business held in private email accounts.

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The High Court states that even where private individuals are expressing their own views online the requirements of lawful processing in the DPA can apply.

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The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills today published its Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth which includes a number of actions and initiatives which will be of interest to universities.

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The ICO has launched a campaign to get views about what information public authorities including FE and HE institutions should proactively release.

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From the beginning of this month UCAS became subject to the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to some of its functions. 

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This guidance is designed to help institutions deal with consent management when sharing personal data across and between institutions and external service providers.

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The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 are now in force and require that Equality Duty compliance information must be published by the end of January 2012.

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This annual conference will look at how far FOI has progressed in Scotland and will highlight the key FOI issues that need to be taken forward.

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ACAS guide offers practical tips on the impact of social networking on discipline and grievances, bullying, defamation, data protection and privacy.

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The ICO wishes to update publication scheme requirements to increase the information proactively made available by public authorities including universities and colleges.

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The UCL Constitution Unit project will look at academics' use of FOI and impact of requests on universities and include analysis of FOI requests and appeals, and use case studies to help inform a good practice guide.

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The Protection of Freedoms Bill was read for the third time and passed by the House of Commons on 11 October 2011.  The Bill will now be considered by the House of Lords.

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Proposals in the Protection of Freedoms Bill include amending the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to create a new ‘right to data’ so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public.

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The ICO has produced guidance to aid understanding and application of FOI legislation for higher education institutions with a particular focus on research information.

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