Recent Cases: Commonwealth
Garvey and Australian National University [2025] ARTA 13
Facts
Mr Benjamin Garvey (“applicant”) is a former student of Australian National University (“respondent”) and applied for access to various documents relating to himself, his conduct, his scholarship or a ‘necessity to infringe’ his ‘academic freedom’. The respondent identified 31 relevant documents. 1 was refused in full, 3 were released in full and the remaining 27 were partially released with personal information or irrelevant material deleted.
The applicant applied to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“Commissioner”) for review, in which the Commissioner set aside the respondent’s decision and substituted its own decision (“Reviewable Decision”). The applicant applied to the Administrative Review Tribunal (“Tribunal”) for a review of the Reviewable Decision on the basis that the material relating to him had been unreasonably redacted as they relate to him an a data breach and infringement of his academic freedom so that the applicant was unable to initiate legal action. The applicant believed the respondent failed to identify all documents
Held
The Tribunal affirmed the Reviewable Decision.
Reasoning
Public interest conditional exemptions – personal privacy s 47F
The Tribunal affirmed each of the decisions in relation to the documents. It found that they contained personal information, such as staff and student names, identification numbers, as well as school details of PhD students, or new employment details for staff. Redactions were made to remove this information from emails and reports, but the applicant’s name and details remained unredacted in the documents. The Tribunal found that the redactions were appropriately completed, concluding that there was no additional information or document which was masked by the redaction process.
Irrelevant information – s 22
The Tribunal affirmed the Commissioner’s decision in regard to the irrelevant information, as the material was outside the scope of the FOI request for reasons such as the subject matter being related to the disestablishment of the Australian Centre on China in the World as an Academic Organisational Unit, or the material made no reference to the applicant or not concerning the applicant. The Tribunal held that the redactions made did not mask additional information or documents and the applicant’s concern on inappropriate redactions was not made out.
'ATD' and Department of Home Affairs (Freedom of Information) [2025] AICmr 9
Facts
‘ATD’ (“applicant”) applied to the Department of Home Affairs (“Department”) for access to all information relating to 2 specific visa applications. The Department did not make a decision within the statutory timeframe and was deemed to have made a decision refusing access. The applicant applied to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“Commissioner”) for review.
The Department identified 3 relevant documents and granted access in full, with some personal information deleted under s 22. The Department then revised its decision on three occasions, ultimately locating 6 additional documents and granting access in full to 4 (with 2 having personal information of departmental staff deleted as irrelevant under s 22. The 2 remaining documents comprised an internal email chain (“email chain”) and correspondence between two government bodies (“correspondence”). The Department refused access to the correspondence under s 47B(a) and granted partial access to the email chain with irrelevant information removed under s 22 and email addresses of certain operation areas of the Department under s 47E(d).
Held
The Commissioner affirmed the Department’s decision that the correspondence was exempt under s 47B(a) and the email chain was exempt under s 47E(d). Disclosure of both categories would have been contrary to the public interest.
Reasoning
Commonwealth-State relations – s 47B(a)
Given the nature of the information in the correspondence, the circumstances in which it arose and the explicit concerns, the Commissioner accepted that disclosure could have compromised trust and cooperation between the Department and the government body, and may have impaired the flow of information between the two, thereby affecting future Commonwealth-State operations or investigations. Therefore, the correspondence was conditionally exempt in full under s 47B(a).
Certain operations of agencies exemption – s 47E(d)
The Commissioner was satisfied that (unlike in other cases) the evidence was sufficient to substantiate how disclosure of the internal email addresses of operational mailboxes in the email chain would or could have been reasonably expected to have a substantial adverse effect of an agency’s proper and efficient law enforcement operations. It could reasonably be expected that releasing the operational email addresses would cause divert the public communications from the publicly established channels of communication into other channels, which would diver the efforts of these channels from their primary task of managing Australia’s borders, which could in turn compromise the effectiveness of those methods, procedures and resources used for those tasks. This would result in a substantial adverse effect on the Department’s operations. These consequences are sufficiently serious or significant to cause concern to a properly concerned person and would cause ‘not insubstantial’ damage. Therefore, the email chain was conditionally exempt under s 47E(d).
Public interest test – s 11A(5)
The Commissioner found that the potential harm in disclosure outweighed any benefit to the public interest from disclosure. While disclosure would have promoted the objects of the FOI Act and allowed the applicant to access its own personal information, disclosure of information consisting of operational email addresses would not promote scrutiny or transparency of decision making or clarity of government decisions. However, disclosure could reasonably have been expected to undermine operations within the Department, damage Commonwealth-State relations and impede the flow of information. Therefore, disclosure would have been contrary to the public interest and the documents were exempt under s 47B(a) and 47E(d).