Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The complainant submitted two requests to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for information about its ‘Head of Counter Disinformation’. The FCO sought to withhold the information falling within the scope of these requests on the basis of sections 24 (national security), 27 (international relations) and 40 (personal data) of FOIA. The Commissioner has concluded that the withheld information is exempt from disclosure on the basis of section 24 of FOIA. The Commissioner has also concluded that the FCO did not breach section 16 by failing to direct the complainant to certain information which was in the public domain. However, the Commissioner has concluded that the FCO committed procedural breaches of sections 10 and 17 in its handling of these requests.