The number of police attendances at Benambra 22 Alsop Close Phillip ACT
Dear Australian Federal Police,
Could you please inform me of the number of times the police have attended Benambra which is at 22 Alsop Close Philip in the past 2 years? In particular I am interested in units 3 and 4.
Also a summary of the reasons for attending would be helpful; for example how many times for public disturbance, how many times for drug related activities, how many times to investigate stolen vehicle number plates, how many times for any other reason.
Yours faithfully,
Sally Richards
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UNCLASSIFIED
Good morning Ms Richards,
Your Freedom of Information Request
I refer to your application emailed 5 May 2017, in which you seek access
to documents under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (the Act) as
follows:
Could you please inform me of the number of times the police have attended
Benambra which is at 22 Alsop Close Philip in the past 2 years? In
particular I am interested in units 3 and 4.
Also a summary of the reasons for attending would be helpful; for example
how many times for public disturbance, how many times for drug related
activities, how many times to investigate stolen vehicle number plates,
how many times for any other reason.
Information considered irrelevant to the scope of your request
The AFP, in its management of FOI requests, excludes the following
information on the basis that is irrelevant to the scope of a request:
- Names of AFP members, other than the Senior Executive.
- Direct telephone numbers, signatures and mobile telephone numbers
of AFP members.
- Duplicate documents, including duplicate emails. The AFP will only
provide emails where they form a final email chain and the
authors/recipients are contained within the final email.
- Information that is publicly available, for example, newspaper
articles, online publications including information available on the AFP
Information Publication Scheme and the AFP disclosure log.
If you object to the AFP excluding any of the above information, please
advise this office within seven days of receipt of this letter.
Your request was received by this agency on 5 May 2017 and the 30 day
statutory period for processing your request commenced from that date.
You will be notified of any charges in accordance with the Freedom of
Information (Fees and Charges) Regulations, should they apply, in relation
to your request as soon as practicable.
Disclosure Log
Please be advised that in accordance with section 11C of the Act, an
agency is required to publish information on their website following the
notification of a decision in respect of a freedom of information
request.
The requirement to publish information released under FOI reinforces the
objectives of the FOI Act to promote a pro-disclosure culture across
government and to increase recognition that information held by government
is a national resource. Exceptions to the requirement to publish
information would apply to personal information and information concerning
the business affairs of a person if it was considered ‘unreasonable’ to do
so. Details of the decision may be published in a Disclosure Log which
can be found at
[1]https://www.afp.gov.au/about-us/informat....
Publication will be made in accordance with timeframes stipulated in
section 11C of the Act.
If, however, after noting the above, you wish to raise any concerns about
the publication of information concerning your request prior to the
notification of a decision, please advise this office in writing before 4
June 2017. If you do not raise any concerns prior to the date of the
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decision.
IVA (AFP22679)
TEAM MEMBER - FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
CHIEF COUNSEL PORTFOLIO
Tel +61(0) 2 61316131
[2]www.afp.gov.au
UNCLASSIFIED
References
Visible links
1. https://www.afp.gov.au/about-us/informat...
2. http://www.afp.gov.au/
UNCLASSIFIED
Dear Ms Richards,
Please find attached a decision in relation to your FOI request.
Regards,
JACQUELINE (AFP12306)
TEAM LEADER, FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
CHIEF COUNSEL PORTFOLIO
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE
Tel +61(0) 2 6131 6131
www.afp.gov.au
Locutus Sum left an annotation ()
I have marked this request as having been refused by the Australian Federal Police. In fact, this is not exactly true in law but it is true in fact. How can this be?
The Commonwealth law gives a right of access to documents and not to information; however, also the law, in s 17 of the Act, says that if the document that the applicant wants does not exist but could be created by using a computer (z.B., by extracting this information from a database) then the document that could be created is taken to be the document that the applicant wants, and the agency must create the document if necessary.
So, the AFP appears to have created a document that answers the questions of the applicant. It has a nice format and a nice title like "Number of police callouts to Benambra 22 Alsop Close Phillip ACT" and in the document there is probably a number about callouts. But then the agency has redated the actual number from the document so that only the nice layout and the nice title remain!
If I have understood the request and the answer correctly, then truly the world is stranger than fiction. But always there is the possibility that I have misunderstood.
Now for the people who are particularly interested in the law ... it is to me curious that the AFP considers this information to be "personal information" that could affect the privacy of the individuals. I say this not because I believe that it is not personal information; I say this because I think that under the Australian law it is probably not personal information, in the same way that the so-called metadata held by Telstra regarding Mr Grubb was held NOT to be personal information (https://www.computerworld.com.au/article... )