Maritime and Coastguard Agency

The complainant has requested audio recordings of distress calls made from the English Channel and transcripts of those recordings. The above public authority relied on a number of different exemptions as its reasons for not providing the information. The Commissioner’s decision is that it would not be reasonably practicable in the circumstances to expect the public authority to provide the information as transcripts and therefore it has complied with its obligations under section 11. The Commissioner considers that the public authority is entitled to rely on section 40(2) of FOIA to withhold the audio recordings. The public authority breached section 17 of FOIA in responding to this request. The Commissioner does not require further steps. First-tier tribunal (General Regulatory chamber) information rights appeal EA/2023/0096 appeal dismissed. Information Tribunal UT UA-2024-000250-GIA PTA refused.
Keywords: redacting audio