Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2022 06:39:00 +0000
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Use of third party drop boxes as a barrier to public access to Right to Know foi decisions
From: Verity Pane <[FOI #9648 email]>
To: OAIC - Legal <[email address]>

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Attn Office of the Australian Information Commissioner,

I seek copy of any document held by the OAIC concerning the use of third party drop boxes and/or other mechanisms used in lieu of giving decisions, notices or documents to addresses given for notices by foi applicants

A limited number of agencies have recently been using such third parties (like Proofpoint or Macquarie Government drop boxes) that only allow one time limited access that requires registration and collection of personal information to use. Anyone can get that information, but only once and only in a very short period, so it is not a security feature to limit access to the foi applicant.

This method prevents the foi decisions, notices or documents from being accessible here on Right to Know to the public - even when the decision or documents released contain no personal information of any person.

These are the same agencies who do not make their disclosure log accessible online and send disclosure log requests again through these third party drop boxes. So this barrier to making these foi decisions, notices or documents searchable by Right to Know and Google is only to reduce the public's ability to access government information.

The point of Right to Know is to make accessing government information easier given some agencies have intentionally made disclosure log access excessively difficult. Those small number of agencies have deployed these unethical strategies to counter that.

So in addition to the above foi application I also seek response from the OAIC what steps it is taking or intends to take to rein in this intentional use of these one use time limited drop boxes to circumvent the open access principles of Right to Know of government information.

Verity Pane

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