Annoyingly, the Metropolitan Police appear to have taken up the new Guidance from the Information Commissioner's Office, (See ICO Guidance on FOIA requests name and address for correspondence - another attack on Anonymity) with bureaucratic glee, and have rejected our FOIA request for the breakdown of some statistics , simply because of our use of a pseudonym, on the WhatDoTheyKnow.com FOIA request submission portal website.
Operation Maxim - breakdown of statistics of United Kingdom versus Foreign passports seized
This, in our view misinterprets the Freedom of Information Act requirement for a "name and address for correspondence".
Since they accept, an email address as the correspondence address, then so should they accept a pseudonym, rather than your "real" name.
The only reason for this name is to help deliver the FOIA disclosure to the requestor. Using a pseudonym obviously does not involve the "asking for personal information about yourself" exemption, and it makes to difference to determining whether a request is repeated or vexatious.
Public Bodies are not allowed to demand to know why any particular bit of information is being requested under the FOIA, so the identity of whoever is making the request is irrelevant.
Remember that WhatDoTheyKnow.com publishes the full text of the correspondence (with a few exceptions which are starting to creep in now), so if anybody did sign their real name and address, it is available to search engines, identity thieves, private investigators, future employers, and secret policemen etc.
By insisting on a "real name", for no good reason involved in the actual delivery of the information to be disclosed, this probably infringes on our ECHR Article 8 right to privacy of our communications and family life, but that will probably take over 5 years to establish through the Court system.
The Met Police rejection:
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