Private use of social media advice provided to employees

James Smith made this Freedom of Information request to NT Department of Mines and Energy as part of a batch sent to 204 authorities

This request has been closed to new correspondence from the public body. Contact us if you think it ought be re-opened.

The request was refused by NT Department of Mines and Energy.

Dear NT Department of Mines and Energy,

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

I request documents related to the ten most recent instances where an employee has sought information, advice, guidance, or opinion on their social media use in a private capacity.

I limit the scope of documents to:
- the original request from the employee
- the agency/department's response
- any follow-up questions and response
- only those sent to a relevant HR / conduct / social media (or similar) team (rather than managers across all areas of the organisation)
- where the original request was created in the last 2 years

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours faithfully,

James Smith

Helen Cleanthous, NT Department of Mines and Energy

1 Attachment

Dear James

Thank you for your email.

I have attached a copy of our departmental Request for Information form for you to complete. Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries and Department of Mines and Energy are now one agency so there is no need to submit two forms. Please complete the attached form as we cannot accept this email as a request, and a $30 application fee is payable upon lodging a request for government information, as well as proof of ID.

Please be aware that the information you are seeking is of a personal nature about our employees, which could be a breach of their privacy and may be refused.

Thank you

Helen Cleanthous
Information Officer    |    Information Management
Department of Primary Industry and Resources
GPO Box 3000 Darwin NT 0801 Australia
T: 08 8999 2314   |   F: 08 8999 2100    |    E: [NT Department of Mines and Energy request email]

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Locutus Sum left an annotation ()

Note 1: Mostly I classify a response like this one to say "clarification requested" because the agency has told the applicant that some more information (or money!) is needed before the request will be processed. This time, I have put the response in the category of "refused" because it is more than 1 year since the agency responded and the applicant has not made a follow-up. This does not mean that the agency will refuse the request when an application is made in the correct (required).

Note 2: Although an application under the Freedom of Information Act 1983 of the Commonwealth of Australia does not require an application fee, this is not the case with applications in the states and territories of Australia. Then an applicant must usually pay a fee, or the request is not valid. Also, the Commonwealth agencies might demand payment of a fee to cover extra processing costs. If the fee is not paid, the request will not be processed.

Note 2: It can be a problem when an applicant sends out a very large bulk request. Although it is convenient for the applicant, very often the application will not be valid. This is usually the fact when an applicant uses Right to Know to apply to an agency of a state or territory; see Note 2. When so many responses are received it is inconvenient to work out how to continue ... or even to classify the responses and often an applicant does not classify the responses so they create a backlog of unclassified responses on Right to Know.