Case: OCE-108532-W5W7Z8
Date of decision: 3 October 2022
Appellant: Mr. A.
Public Authority: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine [the Department]
Issue: Whether Department were justified in refusing the request under articles 8(a)(i) or 8(a)(iii) of the AIE Regulations, whether the request was manifestly unreasonable within the meaning of article 9(2)(a) of the AIE Regulations.
Summary of the Commissioner’s Decision: The Commissioner annulled the decision of the Department and directed that a fresh decision-making process be carried out in respect of the appellant’s request.
This appeal concerns the Integrated Forestry Information System (iFORIS), which is a system maintained by the Department to support the processing of forestry license and scheme applications and payments.
On 1 April 2021, the appellant requested “a copy of, or access to, all spatial datasets available on iFORIS used by DAFM in connection with assessing Forestry Application and Licenses.” The appellant stated in his request that he was seeking access to spatial data only, and not to any personal data where consent for disclosure has not been given by the individuals concerned.
The Department issued a decision on 29 April 2021. It refused the appellant’s request under articles 8(a)(i), 8(a)(iii) and 9(2)(a) of the AIE Regulations. The Department stated that the data in question would amount to terabytes in size, and it was not feasible for the Department to supply this amount of data. The decision found that the datasets sought contained confidential personal information and information that would indicate the location of protected species. The decision also stated that many of the datasets sought are publicly available elsewhere and should be sought from the “authoritative sources”.
The decision considered the weighing of the public interest served by disclosure against the interest served by refusal and concluded that the public interest was best served by withholding the information sought.
The Department says that it holds over 100 layers of data relevant to the appellant’s request which amounts to terabytes in size and as a result, the request is manifestly unreasonable. This Office’s investigator wrote to the Department seeking further information on the steps that would be involved in processing the appellant’s request such as an estimate of time length of time it would take to fulfil the request and the impact this would have on the functioning of the Department. The Department responded stating that it would take “potentially weeks of work” to prepare the material for release, but did not provide any further information to support this statement. The Department stated that it is simply not feasible for it to supply this amount of data, but have not set out why that might be the case.
