Information Commissioner's Office

Ministry of Justice

15 November 2016, Central government

The complainant requested information about the offence of using ‘0808’ numbers at a named prison. Having initially confirmed there were no such offences during the specified time period, the Ministry of Justice (the ‘MOJ’) advised, following an internal review, that there had been ten instances. However, it applied section 40(2), personal information, to those found guilty in the associated adjudications, on the basis that revealing any numbers less than five could lead to individuals being identified. T he Commissioner has decided that the MOJ should have instead relied on the ‘neither confirm nor deny’ provision in section 40 of FOIA in response to this request. The reasons for this are set out in this notice. Therefore, the Commissioner’s decision is that under FOIA, the MOJ was not obliged to confirm whether or not it held the requested information on the basis of section 40(5)(a). The Commissioner requires no steps to be taken as a result of this decision. However, the MOJ has breached section 17(1) of FOIA by failing to issue its refusal notice within 20 working days.

FOI 40: Upheld FOI 17: Upheld