This article was originally published in PDP's Freedom of Information Journal.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘FOIA’) will be affected by the European General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’), which is due to come into effect on 25th May 2018. This position stands even after the event of Brexit, as the UK government has repeatedly confirmed its intentions for new UK data protection legislation to track the requirements of the GDPR.
The main impact on FOIA is to section 40, which interlinks the Act with the Data Protection Act 1998 (‘DPA’) — the law that the GDPR will replace. There is also a secondary impact: that organisations including public authorities will be obliged under the GDPR to document their compliance, meaning public authorities who also have duties to be transparent to the public will have no place to hide.
This article examines these two issues. First, with regard to the primary issue, a brief look at how the current law operates.
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