FOI Request for Detail Incident Report 1-2RX42D
To the Department of Immigration and Citizenship,
Dear Sir/Madam,
Under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) I request the following document:
Incident Detail Report 1-2RX42D from the Department's Compliance, Case Management, Detention and Settlement Portal. I also request any documents attached to the detailed report.
Kind Regards,
Ben B.
UNCLASSIFIED
Our references: FA 13/08/00254; ADF2013/24998
Dear Mr Ben B
I am writing to you in response to your email on 24 July 2013, purportedly
under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Cth) and asking that the
Department of Immigration and Citizenship provide you with a copy of the
following document:
· Incident Detail Report 1-2RX42D from the Department's
Compliance, Case Management, Detention and Settlement Portal. I also
request any documents attached to the detailed report.
The purpose of this email is to advise you that I consider the request to
be invalid under the FOI Act. I will explain my reasons in full below.
Requirements of the FOI Act
The requirements for a valid FOI request are set out in section 15(2) of
the Act, which provides that:
The request must:
(a) be in writing; and
(aa) state that the request is an application for the
purposes of this Act; and
(b) provide such information concerning the document as is
reasonably necessary to enable a responsible officer of the agency, or the
Minister, to identify it; and
(c) give details of how notices under this Act may be sent
to the applicant (for example, by providing an electronic address to which
notices may be sent by electronic communication).
The Act envisages that an agency and the applicant will, where necessary
and appropriate, engage in dialogue about the request. The Act also
envisages that there may be instances when an agency will wish to send a
formal legal notice to an applicant, for example, when the agency believes
that it would be a substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources to
process the request or intends to charge the applicant for processing the
request. In addition, the Act provides applicants with review rights which
are activated by the act of the agency ‘notifiying’ the applicant of the
decision.
In order to engage in this dialogue, the applicant must provide an address
through which the applicant intends to be contactable. It should be an
address through which the agency will be able to write to the applicant
and receive a response to the communication. It must also be an address
through which the agency can reasonably assume that legal notices will be
received, read and responded to by the applicant. This requirement has
been an element of a valid FOI request since the Act was first enacted in
1982.
Issues regarding your request
I am not satisfied that the email address you have provided meets the
requirement of ‘details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the
applicant’ (s.15(2)(c) of the Act. In particular, it does not appear to be
an address to which the agency could send a ‘notice’. The address you have
provided appears to be an address for publication of correspondence on the
internet.
Next steps
Please confirm that the email address that you have provided is an address
to which the Department can send you notices by close of business
Wednesday 14 August 2013. If you have not provided confirmation by that
time, I will close this request as invalid.
Yours sincerely
Angela O'Neil
Assistant Director
FOI & Privacy Policy
Department of Immigration and Citizenship
Telephone: (02) 6264 1382
Email: [1][email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
Dear Angela,
This is to confirm that the email address provided is an address to which the Department can send notices.
You state you are not satisfied that the address meets the requirement of 'details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the applicant', referencing Section15 (2)(c).
The subsection however makes it clear that an electronic address meets this requirement. The full text reads:
(c) give details of how notices under this Act may be sent to the applicant (for example, by providing an electronic address to which notices may be sent by electronic communication. "electronic communication" has the same meaning as in the Electronic Transactions Act 1999 .
In the same way that Section 15(2A) authorised me to make my request by sending the application to an electronic address specified by the department, I designate this address as the detail required by Section 15(2)(c) of how a notice may be sent to me.
It is of no relevance that any notice sent to me at this electronic address subsequently may be published on the internet.
Yours sincerely,
Ben B
UNCLASSIFIED
Our references: FA 13/08/00254; ADF2013/24998
Dear Mr Ben B
Thank you for confirming that you wish to wish to receive notices from DIAC via this email address and that DIAC can anticipate that you will respond to communications that are sent to you via this address. I am satisfied that the requirement in s.15(2)(c) of the Act is met and will progress your request accordingly.
Yours sincerely
Angela O'Neil
Assistant Director
FOI & Privacy Policy
Department of Immigration and Citizenship
Telephone: (02) 6264 1382
Email: [email address]
UNCLASSIFIED
Our references: FA 13/08/00254; ADF2013/24998
Dear Mr B,
I refer to your request FA 13/08/00254, received on 24 July 2013 for the
following:
Incident Detail Report 1-2RX42D from the Department's Compliance, Case
Management, Detention and Settlement Portal. I also request any documents
attached to the detailed report.
I have made a final decision on this request.
Please see attached my signed Decision Letter, Decision Record & Schedule
of Documents and documents.
This request has now been closed.
Regards
Amy Thompson
Freedom of Information Helpdesk
Department of Immigration and Citizenship
UNCLASSIFIED
Ben Fairless left an annotation ()
Looks like I marked it as "not held" and I don't know why. Should show "Partially Successful" and i'll update now :)
Cheers,
Ben
Luke Bacon left an annotation ()
Despite the documents returned being aggressively redacted (in an unusual red on black I might note), the status of this request should seemingly be 'success' not 'information not held.' as the document requested was in fact supplied.