International Law

Information Tribunal orders publication of the early ID Cards Programme Gateway Reviews, again

The Information Tribunal, re-constituted after the previous one was overruled by the High Court, on the grounds of Parliamentary Privilege, has yet again ruled in favour of the publication of the the by now very out of date, but still important, Office of Government Commerce Gateway Reviews into the early stages of the Home Office's controversial ID Cards Programme which became the compulsory centralised biometric database National Identity Register scheme.

Information Tribunal Appeal Number: EA/2006/0068 & EA/2006/0080 Information Commissioner's Ref: FS50070196 & FS50132936 (.pdf)

JUDGMENT

The Tribunal upholds the Decision of the Information Commissioner in his Decision Notice dated 31 July 2006 and orders the disclosure of the two Gateway Reports there set out save that the names of all other parties to the said Reports, both interviewees and reviewers, be redacted and/or deleted, the said disclosure to take place within 28 days of the promulgation of this Decision.

i.e. publication by the 19th March 2009.

If the OGC does not appeal against this Judgment again, thereby wasting even more public money, given the forensic detail in which the legal issues have been examined, multiple times now,, it will be over 4 years since the initial Freedom of Information Act request.

N.B. it is what is not included in these reports, which may prove to be as interesting as what they actually do say.

See the Spy Blog UK FOIA requests category archive OGC Gateway Reviews of the Identity Cards Programme, for other blog postings on this long running saga, which has the Government has spent at least £120,000 on legal fees alone, in order to try to stifle transparency and freedom of information, on a matter of immense public interest.

Full post as published by Spy Blog on February 20, 2009 (boomark / email).