Ms X and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (2014 FOI Act)

• Judge: Elizabeth Dolan Senior Investigator
• Judgment Date: 13 March 2018
• Case Outcome: The Senior Investigator affirmed GMIT's decision. She found that its decision to refuse access to the withheld information in the records was justified under section 37(1) of the Act, since the withheld information contains the personal information of individuals other than the applicant. She found that the public interest in granting the request did not outweigh the public interest in upholding the privacy rights of other individuals.
• Court: Information Commission
• Record Number: 170510
• Respondent: Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology

Whether GMIT was justified in its decision to refuse access to certain records concerning a work-related complaint under sections 30(1)(b), 35(1)(a) and 37(1) of the FOI Act

13 March 2018

Scope of Review

This review is concerned with whether GMIT was justified in deciding to refuse access, in full and in part, to records on the basis of sections 30(1)(b), 35(1)(a) and 37(1) of the FOI Act.

Preliminary Matters

Section 13(4) of the Act requires that, subject to the Act, any reasons a requester gives for making a request shall be disregarded. This means that the applicant's motivation cannot be considered except insofar as this might be relevant to the consideration of the public interest.

The applicant raised an issue of concern to her that the original and internal review decision makers have a conflict of interest in relation to her request. It is not unusual for FOI decision makers to be involved in decisions concerning records in their own area of responsibility within a public body. I would note here that reviews carried out by this Office are de novo reviews, which means that the Commissioner considers all of the circumstances and information which exist on the date of a decision. I stress that the findings which follow concern the applicant's right to access records under the FOI Act and do not extend to other matters related to issues concerning the applicant and GMIT.

Although I am obliged to give reasons for my decision, section 25(3) of the FOI Act requires me to take all reasonable precautions in the course of a review to prevent disclosure of information contained in an exempt record. This means that the extent to which I can describe the contents of the records is limited.

Findings

While GMIT exempted the withheld information in the records on the basis of a number of sections of the FOI Act, I decided to consider section 37(1) first, as this appears to be the most relevant provision.

Section 37- Personal Information
Section 37(1)
Section 37(1) of the FOI Act provides for the refusal of a request where access to the record sought would involve the disclosure of personal information relating to an individual or individuals other than the requester. For the purposes of the Act, personal information is defined as information about an identifiable individual that (a) would, in the ordinary course of events, be known only to the individual or their family or friends or, (b) is held by a public body on the understanding that it would be treated by it as confidential.

The FOI Act details fourteen specific categories of information that is personal, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing definition, including "(xii) the name of the individual where it appears with other personal information relating to the individual or where disclosure of the name would, or would be likely to, establish that any personal information held by the public body concerned relates to the individual".

Section 37(7) provides that a request shall be refused where access to a record would, in addition to involving disclosure of personal information relating to the requester, also involve the disclosure of personal information of other individuals (joint personal information).

While I cannot discuss their content in any detail, I can say that the records contain information relating to an investigation about a complaint involving the applicant and students of the Institute. In its submission to this Office GMIT confirmed that the investigation had...