Law:The Freedom of Information and Privacy (Gov.) Act

40RZ9 — The Freedom of Information and Privacy (Gov.) Act

WHEREAS there has been a call for greater levels of transparency from the government and it's agencies, and

WHEREAS we should take measures to ensure this, and

WHEREAS this will probably be a sufficient enough measure to last the test of time without further measure ever being required, and

WHEREAS at the same time we should take measures to protect certain information from scrutiny for the sakes of privacy and security, now

THEREFORE be it resolved by the Ziu that the government of the Kingdom of Talossa has the duty and responsibility to make public information about and held by the government's cabinet ministries and sub offices within the guidelines set below,

SECTION 1: INFORMATION AVAILABLE FOR REQUEST

1. A citizen may only request access to information that has been recorded on paper, computer file, video file and/or audio file. Unrecorded opinion does not fall within the scope of this legislation.
2. A citizen may request information regarding the business of the government's executive offices and the government's cabinet ministries so long as the information being requested does not conflict with SECTIONs 2, 4 or 5 of this act.
3. Leaders of political parties may access some personal contact details as set out in SECTION 5 of this act.

SECTION 2: INFORMATION EXEMPT FROM REQUEST

The type of information not available for access is outlined as follows:

1. Records that are of a personal nature where the disclosure of such records would clearly infringe a citizen's individual privacy in accordance with the Sixth Covenant of Article XIX (Covenant of Rights and Freedoms) of the 1997 Organic Law of the Kingdom of Talossa. This also includes private medical, counseling, or psychological records.
2. Records of a law enforcement or military agency only when the records meet one or more of the following criteria:
   1. The records would identify informants or witnesses,
   2. The records would identify undercover officers,
   3. The records would provide personal information of officers or officer's family members,
   4. The records would provide details of current operations or protocol. This includes details of communication codes and plans of deployment.
   5. The records would endanger the life or safety of officers or officer's families if the information was disclosed.
   6. The records are of an ongoing investigation.
   7. Records that fall within the scope of medical practitioner - patient privilege, attorney - client privilege, religious figure privilege, or any and all current and future privilege recognized by Statutory Law, Organic Law or Cort Rule.
   8. Records of security measures and records that would hinder the body's ability to maintain the physical security of custodial or penal institutions occupied by persons arrested or convicted of a crime or admitted because of a mental disability.
3. Conversation logs that may be regarded as private may also be excluded from the scope of this legislation.

NB: This list of exclusions may be amended by future Statutory Laws that may be passed as seen fit by the Ziu.

SECTION 3: BURDEN OF PROOF

1. The burden of proof falls on the body that has been asked to disclose any and all requested information. The requester of the information does not have an obligation to provide an explanation for their request.
2. If a request for information is denied by the body then an explanation as to why the request has been denied must be given.
3. If a body fails to disclose requested information without a valid reason then the uppermost cort, or any other cort as set up by the Ziu, will reserve the right to force the body to disclose.
4. The Corts will also arbitrate cases in which a requester feels a given reason was not sufficient enough to deny the request.

SECTION 4: DATA PROTECTION

1. Personal information such as, but not limited to, private mailing addresses, contact telephone numbers and private email addresses, given names, ages, date of births and national security numbers shall be held on file and shall only be accessed by the Secretary of State or The King without prior permission of the person to whom the information relates to. In all other instances permission must be obtained by the person to whom the personal information relates to.
2. The type of information and records described in clause 1 above shall never be passed on to outside agencies for the purposes of data farming or market research. The details may be passed onto non-Talossan law enforcement agencies in the interest of international law enforcement and co-operation.
3. Personal Information described in clause 1 above shall never be published on any public website belonging to the Kingdom as an asset.

SECTION 5: INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO POLITICAL PARTY LEADERS

An Electorate Database shall be made available to political party leaders.

1. The Database shall only be accessible by leaders of parties which have been fully registered with the Chancery and provincial officers, provided the conditions in section 6 of this act are met.
2. The Database shall contain the following information on each of the Kingdom's Citizens only: Name, Province, E-Mail address.
3. Measures shall be taken to ensure that the database is kept non-public and can only be viewed by the audience intended.
4. Additional information may be held upon the database against any given person ONLY if that person requests such information to be included.
5. Any citizen may request to opt-out of being included in this database for any reason at any time by notifying the database administrator.

Section 6: Information available to provincial officers. Provincial officers may have access to part of the electoral database established by section 5 of this act, provided the following conditions are met: 1) The provincial officer is (partly) responsible for the conduct of provincial elections and needs the information in the database for the conduct of these elections. 2) Provincial law of the province for which the officer serves must actively allow the officer to have access to the information. 3) The provincial officer must send a request to the SoS for access to the information. The SoS may refuse the request if the conditions in this section are not met. 4) The provincial officer will only get access to the information about the citizens of the province for which he is conducting the elections. 5) The provincial officer may not share the information with anyone not entitled to the information. 6) The provincial officer may use the information only for the conduct of provincial elections.

FURTHERMORE the bill referenced 25RZ99 is hereby repealed due to the fact that the Freedom of Information sections above renders 25RZ99 unnecessary while adding a level of optional privacy to the same concept.

Noi urent q'estadra sa,
The Right Honourable Éovart Grischun (MC - PP, FGP)
El Túischac'h Flip Molinar (MC - FGP)
The Right Honourable Brad Holmes (Senator - Ataturk)