Section 5: Information that the Commissioner may withhold

All information covered by the Commissioner's publication scheme can either be accessed through the Commissioner's website, or will be provided promptly following the Commissioner's receipt of your request.

The Commissioner's aim in maintaining this publication scheme is to be as open as possible.  You should note, however, that there may be limited circumstances where information will be withheld from one of the classes of information listed in Section 12 - Classes of Information.  Information will only be withheld, however, where the information is exempt under FOISA (or, in the case of environmental information, the EIRs).

Information may be withheld, for example, where its disclosure would breach the law of confidentiality, harm an organisation's commercial interests, or endanger the protection of the environment.  Information may also be withheld if it is another person's personal information, and its release would breach the data protection legislation.

Whenever information is withheld we will inform you of this, and will set out why that information cannot be released. Even where information is withheld it may, in many cases, be possible to provide copies with the withheld information edited out.

If you wish to complain about any information which has been withheld from you, please refer to Section 10 - Complaints. 

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