WESTERN AUSTRALIA POLICE FORCE
OFFICE OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION RELEASE CENTRE
WESTRALIA SQUARE
Your Ref:
Nil
5TH FLOOR
Our Ref:
FOI/2020/1781
141 ST GEORGES TERRACE, PERTH
Inquiries:
Ian McDougall (08) 6229 5910
WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6000
T Smith
PO Box 163
HILLARYS WA 6923
Dear T Smith
I refer to your correspondence received on 6 April 2021, requesting an internal review
of your Freedom of Information (FOI) application.
BACKGROUND
1. On 19 November 2020, a Freedom of Information (FOI) access application for
personal information was received from you requesting:
“…Please advise the total number of charges brought against serving WA Police
officers of any rank over the period 2010-present.
Please provide a table showing the total number of charges per calendar or financial
year and a breakdown in each year by officer ranks and the type of offence(s) each
officer was charged with…”
2. The decision in response to your application was that no documents could be
provided that meet the scope of an application for ‘personal information’.
INTERNAL REVIEW
3. On 6 April 2021, you requested an internal review of this decision on the
following grounds:
“…It is shocking a WA public agency, with a department tasked specifically to
respond to public information requests, takes four months to assess a two-
sentence, simple enquiry and then decline it on spurious grounds. The delay
cannot be explained by a need to search for information, or the requests'
complexity. This poor performance would not be accepted in the private
sector. Is WA Police intentionally delaying publication of information that
would show up criminal behaviour in its ranks?...”
“…The reason for declining the enquiry is weak. Aggregate data that
summarises statistics about nine thousand staff is not "personal information".
By definition, it relates to a large group of people. This is further the case in
data showing totals figures per year - as was requested…”
DECISION
4. After considering the grounds for your internal review, my decision is to confirm
the original decision. I am satisfied the information you seek access to is not
‘personal’ information nor your personal information.
5. Consequently, my decision is that no document can be provided within the
scope of your
personal information application such as yours.
6. Your FOI application was for your ‘
personal information’ only. Personal
information is defined in the Glossary of the FOI Act as:
Personal information means information or an opinion, whether true or not,
and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an individual, whether
living or dead —
(a) whose identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained
from the information or opinion; or
(b) who can be identified by reference to an identification number or
other identifying particular such as a fingerprint, retina print or
body sample;
7. Therefore, personal information is restricted to information about a person that
identifies the person, or could identify that person.
8. Non-personal information is defined in regulation 2A of the
Freedom of
Information Regulations 1993 (FOI Regulations) as
information that is not
personal information about the applicant.
9. The previous Information Commissioner has held that where an FOI application
is for access to personal information only, any information in the requested
documents about people other than the applicant is outside the scope of the
application and, therefore, need not be disclosed1.
10. In that decision, the Information Commissioner also held that this principle
applies even in circumstances where that non-personal information is contained
in an FOI applicant’s own documents previously sent to the agency, or in letters
from the agency to the applicant2.
11. Consequently, any information that is not personal to you, in this case statistical
information, is considered to be outside the scope of your access application,
and need not be disclosed under the FOI Act. Information of this nature should,
if practicable, be edited from any documents provided to you.
12. I have decided that no document can be provided within the scope of a
‘personal
information’ application such as yours; that if the requested documents were to
exist, it would comprise of non-personal information. All this information would
be considered outside the scope of a personal information application such as
yours.
1
Re Georgeson and Government Employees Superannuation Board [2013] WAICmr 10 at [19] 2
Re Georgeson and Government Employees Superannuation Board [2013] WAICmr 10 at [22]
2
13. Please note that an FOI applicant can submit an access application for ‘non-
personal’ information, which encompasses information not personal to the
applicant. However, please also note that in respect of the personal information
of private citizens, an agency will generally require written consent from those
individuals, in order to be able to release their personal information to an access
applicant.
14. A non-personal application can be submitted via the WA Police Force website
at
https://www.police.wa.gov.au/Police-Direct/Apply-for-Information/Freedom-
of-Information-Request-Form/Freedom-of-Information-Form. In the ‘request
type’ section, please select ‘Documents including Non-Personal documents’.
Please note that non-personal applications attract a $30 fee, as per Schedule 1
to the Freedom of Information Regulations 1993.
RIGHT OF REVIEW
Should you be aggrieved by this decision, you have the right to seek external
review by lodging a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commissioner.
The Commissioner is independent of executive government and reports directly
to Parliament.
If you are the access applicant, you must apply for external review within 60 days
after being given the agency's decision. If you are a third party who objects to
disclosure of your information, you must apply for external review within 30 days
after being given the agency's decision.
In exceptional circumstances, the Commissioner may allow a complaint to be
lodged after these periods have elapsed.
A complaint to the Information Commissioner must:
1. Be in writing;
2. Give an address in Australia to which notices may be sent;
3. Give particulars of the decision you want reviewed;
4. Enclose a copy of this notice of decision; and
5. Be lodged at the Office of the Information Commissioner.
Officer of the Information Commissioner
469 Wellington St, PERTH WA 6000
Telephone (08) 6551 Fax (08) 6551 7889
Yours sincerely
IAN MCDOUGALL
FOI OFFICER
INFORMATION RELEASE CENTRE
19 APRIL 2020
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