Our reference: FOIREQ19/00116
Mr Roger Sparrow
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Your Freedom of information request – FOIREQ19/00116
Dear Mr Sparrow,
I refer to your request for documents under the
Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) (the
FOI Act) received by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (the OAIC) on
1 June 2019.
I am an authorised officer under s 23(1) of the FOI Act to make decisions in relation to
freedom of information (FOI) requests.
On 1 June 2019, you requested access to:
… any documents that relate to any representative complaints made or expected under
section 36 of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), including documents relating to:
1. any past, pending or expected representative complaints (whether the complaint was
investigated by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or not);
2. any documents relating to possible representative actions in relation to Facebook, Inc (in
relation to Cambridge Analytica, as investigated by the OAIC (per statement of 5 April 2018));
and
3. any documents relating to possible representative actions in relation to Avid Life Media, Inc
(in relation to the Ashley Madison data breach, investigated by the OAIC (per statement of 25
August 2015), to the extent that those documents are not already available on the OAIC's
website.
From 1 November 2010 to today's date.
On 14 June 2019, Ms Amanda Nowland wrote to you to advise you that she believed that a
practical refusal reason, under s 24AA of the FOI Act existed, as the work involved in
processing your request in its current form will substantially and unreasonably divert the
resources of the OAIC from its other operations due to its size and broad scope. Ms Nowland
explained that a failure to comply with this requirement is a ‘practical refusal’ reason under
s 24AA(1)(a)(i) of the FOI Act.
1300 363 992
T +61 2 9284 9749
GPO Box 5218
www.oaic.gov.au
xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
F +61 2 9284 9666
Sydney NSW 2001
ABN 85 249 230 937
You were given an opportunity to consult Ms Nowland to revise your request to remove the
practical refusal reason and asked you to state whether you wanted to revise your request,
withdraw your request or whether you did not want to revise your request.
You were required to respond by the end of the consultation period, which was
27 June 2019.
Request consultation process
A request is taken to be withdrawn under s 24AB(7) of the FOI Act if the applicant does not
consult the contact person during the consultation period in accordance with the notice or:
• withdraw their request
• make a revised request, or
• tell us that you do not wish to revise your request.
Because no response was received by the end of the consultation period, this matter has
been treated as withdrawn.
Yours sincerely,
Delaney Smith
Legal Services Officer
Legal Services
3 July 2019
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