Reasons for decision
Material taken into account
In making my decision, I have had regard to the following:
• your freedom of information request dated 23 August 2022;
• the document at issue;
• the FOI Act, in particular ss, 17 and 22 of the FOI Act;
• the Guidelines issued by the Australian Information Commissioner under s 93A of
the FOI Act (the FOI Guidelines); and
• consultation with line area/s of the OAIC in relation to your request.
Requests involving the use of computers (s 17)
Under section 17 of the FOI Act, if an FOI request is made for a document that could
be produced by using a computer ordinarily available to the agency for retrieving or
collating stored information, an agency is required to deal with the request as if it
was a request for written documents to which the FOI Act applies.
Following consultation with the FOI Dispute Resolution line area, the Information
Management and Project Team has been able to create a document that lists all
s 55G decisions received by the OAIC (excluding draft decisions) since 1 January 2020
up to the date of the FOI request and which includes details for all Resolve fields able
to be produced solely by Resolve's custom reporting functions.
Legal has been advised by the line areas that they are able to produce a document to
capture 55G decisions received by the OAIC for IC reviews that were closed in a
certain period only, at this point in time.
Access to edited copies with irrelevant and exempt matter deleted (section
22)
In accordance with section 22 of the FOI Act, an agency must consider whether it
would be reasonably practicable to prepare an edited copy of documents subject to
an FOI request where material has been identified as exempt or irrelevant to the
request.
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I have determined that no exemptions apply to this material. I have found the
document to contain irrelevant material, or material outside the scope of your
request. This material consists of the names of the IC review applicants.
In your FOI request, you excluded
“name of an Ic review applicant and those which
contain personal information about an Ic review applicant.” Accordingly, I am
satisfied that this material is irrelevant or outside the scope of your request in
accordance with s 22(1)(a)(i ) of the FOI Act. I note that personal information is more
than just names and includes OAIC reference numbers.
Accordingly, I have made an edited copy of the documents which removes all
irrelevant and exempt material and otherwise grants you full access to the material
in scope of your request.
Conclusion
Please see the following page for information about your review rights and
information about the OAIC’s disclosure log.
Yours sincerely
Alessia Mercuri
Lawyer
23 September 2022
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If you disagree with my decision
Internal review
You have the right to apply for an internal review of my decision under Part VI of the
FOI Act. An internal review will be conducted, to the extent possible, by an officer of
the OAIC who was not involved in or consulted in the making of my decision. If you
wish to apply for an internal review, you must do so in writing within 30 days. There
is no application fee for internal review.
If you wish to apply for an internal review, please mark your application for the
attention of the FOI Coordinator and state the grounds on which you consider that
my decision should be reviewed.
Applications for internal reviews can be submitted to:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Alternatively, you can submit your application by email to xxx@xxxx.xxx.xx, or by fax
on 02 9284 9666.
Further Review
You have the right to seek review of this decision by the Information Commissioner
and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).
You may apply to the Information Commissioner for a review of my decision (IC
review). If you wish to apply for IC review, you must do so in writing within 60 days.
Your application must provide an address (which can be an email address or fax
number) that we can send notices to, and include a copy of this letter. A request for
IC review can be made in relation to my decision, or an internal review decision.
It is the Information Commissioner’s view that it will usually not be in the interests of
the administration of the FOI Act to conduct an IC review of a decision, or an internal
review decision, made by the agency that the Information Commissioner heads: the
OAIC. For this reason, if you make an application for IC review of my decision, and the
Information Commissioner is satisfied that in the interests of administration of the
Act it is desirable that my decision be considered by the AAT, the Information
Commissioner may decide not to undertake an IC review.
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Section 57A of the FOI Act provides that, before you can apply to the AAT for review
of an FOI decision, you must first have applied for IC review.
Applications for IC review can be submitted online at:
https://forms.business.gov.au/smartforms/servlet/SmartForm.html?formCode=ICR_
Alternatively, you can submit your application to:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Or by email to xxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx, or by fax on 02 9284 9666.
Accessing your information
If you would like access to the information that we hold about you, please contact
xxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx. More information is available on the Access our information
page on our website.
Disclosure log
Section 11C of the FOI Act requires agencies to publish online documents released to
members of the public within 10 days of release, except if they contain personal or
business information that would be unreasonable to publish.
The documents I have decided to release to you contain business or personal
information that would be unreasonable to publish. As a result, the documents will
not be published on our disclosure log shortly after being released to you.
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