17 February 2023
Oliver Smith
BY EMAIL: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
In reply please quote:
FOI Request: FA 22/11/01096
File Number: FA22/11/01096
Dear Mr Smith
I refer to your email dated 21 November 2022 in which you request access to documents
held by the Department of Home Affairs (the Department) under the
Freedom of Information
Act 1982 (the FOI Act).
I am writing to inform you that I intend to refuse your request on the grounds that a practical
refusal reason exists. However, before I proceed to a final decision, you have an opportunity
to revise your request to remove the practical refusal reason. This ‘
request consultation
process’ now provides you with a
consultation period of 14 days to respond in one of the
ways set out below.
Scope of Request
You have requested access to the following:
1.
Any agreement, memorandum of understanding or other document
evidencing an agreement or understanding between the Department of Home
Affairs and any of the following companies namely Meta, Facebook, Twitter,
Google (including YouTube, Google Docs or any other Google service) (“Social
Media Providers”) with respect to any takedown portal, backend access, content
removal or censorship, or any similar content removal or moderation or like
mechanism provided by any of the Social Media Providers (“Takedown
Mechanisms”).
2.
The number of requests or demands from the Department of Home Affairs
to any of the Social Media Providers to remove, redact, censor, limit or otherwise
prevent, slow or limit the publication, view and reach of any content hosted or
otherwise made available on any of the Social Media Providers for the period 1
January 2017 to 15 December 2022.
Power to refuse request
Section 24 of the FOI Act provides that if the Department is satisfied that a practical refusal
reason exists in relation to a request, the Department must undertake a consultation
process with you, and if, after that consultation process, the Department remains satisfied
that the practical refusal reason stil exists, the Department may refuse to give you access
to the documents subject to the request.
6 Chan Street Belconnen ACT 2617
PO Box 25 Belconnen ACT 2616 • Emai
l xxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx •
www.homeaffairs.gov.au
2
Practical refusal
A
practical refusal reason exists if either (or both) of the following applies:
(a)
the work involved in the processing of the request would substantially and
unreasonably divert the resources of the Department from its other
operations
(b)
the request does not satisfy the requirement in section 15(2)(b) of the FOI
Act, which requires you to provide such information concerning the document
you are seeking access to, to enable the Department to be able to identify it.
Reasons for practical refusal
After undertaking searches and consulting with the Procurement and Contracts business
area of the Department in relation to your request, I consider that processing the request,
would require an unreasonable diversion of the Department’s resources.
Over
300 contracts have been identified as being potentially in scope of your request. Each
contact would need to be manually interrogated to identify and extract any documents in
scope of your request.
It is estimated that one staff member [APS 6 full time equivalent] would be required to
examine 10 contracts per day to identify and extract relevant documents. It would therefore
take over
225 hours [or 30 full business days] of exclusive work to identify documents in
scope of your request.
If documents in scope of your request
were identified, the Department would then need to
create a schedule of documents, undertake assessment of any possible exemptions under
the FOI Act, and consult internal business areas on each document. I have not included an
estimate for this work as the number of contracts in scope of your request is not currently
known.
Based on the significant work effort required to identify documents in scope of your request,
I am satisfied that continuing to process your request would result in a substantial and
significant diversion of resources of the Department as it would significantly impede several
business areas’ ability to carry out essential operations.
We now seek your assistance in revising the scope in ways which would remove the
practical refusal reason.
You may wish to access the
Austender public database of contracts - which contains a
listing of the Department’s contracts and provides contract periods and values of contracts
amongst other information – to identify particular contracts of interest in order to narrow the
scope of your request.
Request Consultation Process
You now have an opportunity to revise your request to enable it to proceed.
Under section 24AB of the FOI Act, you have 14 days, until
close of business 3 March
2023, to respond to this notice in writing and advise me whether:
• you wish to make a revised request;
• indicate that you do not wish to revise your request; or
3
• withdraw your request.
Contact
Should you wish to revise your request or have any questions in relation to this process you
may contact me at
xxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx .
[Signed electronically]
Elaine - position number 60097486
Authorised Decision Maker
Department of Home Affairs
Document Outline
- Scope of Request
- 1. Any agreement, memorandum of understanding or other document evidencing an agreement or understanding between the Department of Home Affairs and any of the following companies namely Meta, Facebook, Twitter, Google (including YouTube, Google Docs o...
- 2. The number of requests or demands from the Department of Home Affairs to any of the Social Media Providers to remove, redact, censor, limit or otherwise prevent, slow or limit the publication, view and reach of any content hosted or otherwise made ...
- Power to refuse request
- Practical refusal
- Reasons for practical refusal
- Contact
- Elaine - position number 60097486