Private use of social media advice provided to employees
Dear Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads,
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
Good afternoon James
I refer to your recent enquiry to the Department of Transport and Main
Roads requesting information relating to the private use of social media.
It would be appreciated if you could please contact me to discuss this
further.
Kind regards,
Megan Miles
Senior Advisor (RTI and Privacy)| RTI, Privacy and Complaints Management
Governance Branch | Department of Transport and Main Roads
Floor 5 | Capital Hill | [1]85 George Street | Brisbane Qld 4000
GPO [2]Box 1549 | Brisbane Qld 4001
P: [3](07) 306 67104 | F: (07) 306 67022
E: [4][email address]
W : [5]http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/
Good afternoon James
Thank you for your recent enquiry to the Department of Transport and Main
Roads (the department) about accessing documents related to the ten most
recent instances where an employee has sought information, advice,
guidance or opinion on the use of social media in a private capacity.
Preliminary enquiries regarding your request were made with the
department’s Social Media Team who have advised that only one instance can
be recalled where an employee contacted them to seek advice in relation to
the creation of a private Facebook page. This discussion occurred over
the telephone and a written record of the conversation was not recorded.
Subsequent discussions have revealed that the information you have
requested is not stored or recorded in a central location. Rather, if
documents did exist, they may be held locally by the individual Human
Resources Branch within each region/district of the department. Please be
advised that undertaking searches in order to identify and then locate
this information across the state would be a time consuming and costly
process.
Should you wish to pursue this matter, you will need to lodge an
application under the Right to Information Act 2009 (the RTI Act) and pay
the statutory application fee of $48.00. Applications can be lodged
online at:
[1]http://www.smartservice.qld.gov.au/servi...
Alternatively, you may choose to lodge an application by completing the
attached Right to Information and Information Privacy Access Application
form and forwarding it to the below address, together with payment of the
application fee (please note, the department is unable to process manual
credit card payments):
RTI, Privacy and Complaints Management Team
Department of Transport and Main Roads
GPO Box 1549
Brisbane Qld 4001
Finally, if you reside in Queensland, you can lodge an application by
completing the attached form and attending at a Department of Transport
and Main Roads Customer Service Centre (CSC) nearest you. If you choose
this option, please ask the CSC officer to email a copy of your
application and the receipt for payment of the application fee to
[2][Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads request email].
While the RTI Act provides a right of access to documents held by
government agencies, this right of access is also subject to limitations
or exclusions. What this means is that whilst the department meets the
objective of the legislation and provides access to documents wherever
possible, it does not guarantee access to all or any parts of the
requested documents.
In situations where the proposed release of the requested documents would
be considered to be of concern to another person or entity (third party),
consultation under section 37 of the RTI Act would need to occur before a
final decision on access is made. If an objection to the release of the
information is raised, access will be deferred until the review rights of
the third party have been exhausted.
Finally, please be aware that when an application takes more than five
hours to finalise (and in this instance, it is highly likely that this
would occur), processing charges are applicable under the RTI Act at the
current rate of $7.45 per fifteen minutes. The department will provide
you with an estimate of any applicable charges before finalising your
application.
I trust the above information is of assistance.
Kind regards,
Megan Miles
Senior Advisor (RTI and Privacy)| RTI, Privacy and Complaints Management
Governance Branch | Department of Transport and Main Roads
Floor 5 | Capital Hill | [3]85 George Street | Brisbane Qld 4000
GPO [4]Box 1549 | Brisbane Qld 4001
P: [5](07) 306 67104 | F: (07) 306 67022
E: [6][email address]
W : [7]http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/
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.
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.