What does that even mean ?

It means the data was in an Excel file and was completely visible to anyone who spotted that the column numbers weren't sequential and then clicked on the 'Unhide' option.

Seems quite complicated.

You sure they just didn't change the text colour to white?

>to anyone who .... clicked on the 'Unhide' option.

So that would be a hacking charge

I mean, first it was NI Police via a FOIA request, then Cumbrian Police via a FOIA request, and now Norfolk & Suffolk? That's three I count so far.

Looks like people are being lazy when replying to FOIA requests, or are not given the appropriate training to ensure FOIA requests don't leak personal data.

I'm tempted to submit an FOI request asking how many people at each police force deal with FOI requests, and see if the names of the specific clerical staff end up in there somewhere.

Quadruple. Norfolk and Suffolk are separate police forces.

"based in the east of England " is a bit of an odd phrase

I' would have used "cover their respective counties" but that might confuse LeftPondians, so could just say "In East Anglia"

I don't think it's a particularly odd phrase. Saying "their respective counties" is only meaningful if you know where Norfolk and Suffolk are. Likewise, referring to East Anglia" is only meaningful if you know where East Anglia is (and it's a stretch to imagine that someone knows where East Anglia is, but doesn't know that it's affectively a synonym for Norfolk & Suffolk)

East of England includes everywhere from Northumberland to Kent.

Well, no. East of England generally refers to Norfolk and Suffolk. At least on the weather forecast, which is all that matters.

Northumberland is in The North, and Kent is in The South East.

Also, I'm not sure why they lump Norfolk and Suffolk together and in Suffolk we don't tend to marry our siblings (apart from Shotley, which used to get cut off regularly by the sea - so not much else to do I guess?)

The official EU Region included Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire as well.

I guess we can now define it however we like.

Taking back control (TM)!

Northumberland is in The North

Yes...and Manchester isn't.

(spoken as a Northumbrian)

"East of England generally refers to Norfolk and Suffolk. At least on the weather forecast, which is all that matters."

Context was post worrying about confusing Left-Pondians who won't be listening to UK weather forecasts. Taken literally by someone with no other context the East of England would literally* be anywhere from Northumberland to Kent inclusive.

* Literally literally.

Oh I'm American, I know where East Anglia is! It's just north of Nambia, right?

East Anglia is obviously to the East of West Anglia!!

"or are not given the appropriate training to ensure FOIA requests don't leak personal data"

More likely this. A further possible cause is someone being handed the job just before the deadline and not having time to do the job.

Whatever the factors there seems to be a collective lack of quality in this area. Perhaps the forces could join together to set up a central, properly staffed office to which it would be mandatory to send responses to review and release.

>join together to set up a central, properly staffed office

But that would allow the enemy access to their data

Certain actors attempting to discredit FOI?

But, and this is often ignored, there are huge issues dealing with FOIA requests where organisations will not be robust enough in responding to the serial requesters and vexatious requests.

I would surmise that teh actual request may have come from the same source. There are people out there who do nothing but send out request after request.

I am not excusing the mistakes but having been on the receiving end of some of these:

An inventory of all our network equipment, manufacturer, model, purchase date

The same for all storage and servers

The square meter area occupied for teaching space compared to admin.

The list goes on.

Management and CIOs are scared to say no so people run round sorting all this crap out.

FOIA has it's place however it is just being abused and most of the requests are absolutely nothing to do with the original concepts when it was first setup.

Management and CIOs are scared to say no

I'm not particularly up on this stuff, so it's a genuine question... what happens if they do say no? Surely there's a mechanism in the Act to tell people to do one if it's an unreasonable request?

The ICO has the details [1]here .

Of course, the UK government has gone out of its way to [2]exploit every possible loophole in order to frustrate otherwise admissible requests.

[1] https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi-eir-and-access-to-information/guide-to-freedom-of-information/refusing-a-request/

[2] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/freedom-of-information/uk-government-running-orwellian-unit-to-block-release-of-sensitive-information/

Nice, thanks for the links! Interesting reading.

"Surely there's a mechanism in the Act to tell people to do one if it's an unreasonable request?"

Yes, absolutely, and also if it would cost too much.

Somebody must be sat in an office somewhere trying desperately to think up a good excuse for all this.....

"Following our investigation, we have concluded that no actual errors were made, the data was just going away on it's usual August Summer holidays"

I suspect that Scotland will be next. Their very existence a a single item betrays huge political fiddling. It will then be something else that they can blame the former 1st minister for.

Scotland has already had a breech this week, they accidentally published all the personal details of all adopted and fostered children in Scotland.

"Scotland has already had a breech this week"

No kilt?