Exemptions to Information Requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
There are 23 exemptions which can be applied to information requests. These are broken down into two types of exemption, qualified and absolute.
There are seven absolute exemptions and these are:-
- Information accessible by other means
- Information supplied by or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters
- Court records
- Parliamentary Privilege
- Personal Information
- Information Provided in Confidence
- Information whose disclosure is prohibited by law
There are also 16 qualified exemptions which are:-
- Information intended for future publication
- National Security
- Defence
- International relations
- Relations within the UK
- The economy
- Investigations and Proceedings
- Law enforcement
- Audit functions
- Formulation of Government policy
- Prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs
- Communications with Her Majesty
- Health and Safety
- Some Personal information
- Legal Professional Privilege
- Commercial interest
Qualified exemptions are subject to a Public Interest Test to establish whether or not it would be in the interests of the public to disclose the information or not, even though an exemption could be applied to the information. The Public interest test and more information about the exemptions is available under those sections marked Absolute exemptions, Qualified exemptions and Public interest test.