$30 application fee? Processing fee? Puh-lease. Information was born to be free.
The bits I like:
Remission of fees can be sought having regard to, amongst other factors, financial hardship or public interest.
What FOI decisions can I appeal against?
- Decisions not letting you see what you want, when you want it, or in the form you want it.
- Decisions relating to remission of an application fee.
- Decisions imposing a charge to see what you want.
- Decisions in respect of the amount of the charge imposed upon you.
- Decisions refusing to change or annotate documents about you which you think are incomplete, incorrect, out of date or misleading.
- Decisions letting others see documents which you say would unreasonably disclose:
- your personal information;
- your lawful business or professional affairs;
- lawful business, commercial or financial affairs of your firm.
- Decisions to give you access to documents about your physical or mental health through a qualified person and not directly to you.
The bits I don't:
Application fees
- There is an application fee of $30 for FOI requests.
- There is a separate application fee of $40 for internal review of a decision.
Processing charges
The charge for locating documents is $15 per hour.
- The charge for agencies' decision-making and consultation time is $20 per hour.
- There are charges in relation to the provision of access (eg: 10c per photocopy, $6.25 per half hour supervised inspection and special rates for special services such as tape transcription or computer output).
- Requests for personal information may incur a maximum charge of two hours for locating documents and a further two hours for decision making time.
- However, full rates for the provision of access apply.
So, we have to find things that are Sodding Interesting to the General Public. Then ask for them in RDF [AGLS in government speak]. Exposed to the web. Free of charge.
Suggestions, people!
3 comments:
We think you missed the point Dan!
Freedom of Information legislation was introduced as a direct result of public pressure for governments to be more accountable.
But when it was introduced, the government appointed a whole new (highly paid) bureacracy to argue why any requests are not in the public interest
As an additional deterrent in your quest for new knowledge, a range of fees were introduced so that you wouldn't ask for too much too often.
You didn't mention that those very nice looking appeal options also have a cost:
What will it cost me to appeal?
No fees are payable for Ombudsman review.
You will have to pay for your own legal representation (unless you represent yourself), witnesses expenses, and other costs connected with your AAT or Federal Court case unless:
- you are given legal aid; or
- your case is successful, or substantially successful, and the Commonwealth pays them by order of the Federal Court or recommendation of the AAT.
If your AAT case is unsuccessful, you won't have to pay the agency's costs (but you may have to if your Federal Court case is unsuccessful).
Good luck in your hunt for free information!
Be that as it may... I'm still keen to see how FOI could be used as a lever (combined with a mix of social engineering, sucking up, smiling nicely, and so forth) to encourage government agencies to open up their data.
The things we can do with just a little bit of data from an authoritive source are boundless.
At work, for instance, we've got ourselves a copy of all of the postcodes, suburbs and local government areas in Australia. Simple, boring schmoring data, right?
Wrong! We've been playing some interesting games with geo/google maps/photographs of housing all mashed up - similar in concept to HousingMaps, but stunning to play with in your own backyard.
We're also playing with TSP as well - how many places can you send a (human) agent in one day in how many suburbs to look at how many properties? Can two agents in the approximate area work better than one?
There's of course a lot more, but I shan't give away all of our secrets :)
If we can build all of that out of boring old postcode lists, what could we do with the wealth of data locked away in many government departments...
Yup, data is exciting!
Particularly when you can organise it spatially such as by postcode, LGA etc and then map it. The housingmaps.com was great - lots of rental housing in San Fran although it looks a bit pricey.
Governments have recognised the value of their data increasingly, which is why ABS now charges for much of its sorted data.
Not to mention other unlikely organisations such as the State Courts Authority who sell off data to the Credit Reference Association (among others).
I'm not sure whether a smiling/sultry/seductive/semi-nekkid pic of your upper body will be enough to make them drop their fees but its worth a try LOL.
If nothing else it might get the counter staff to drop their pants...
I was fascinated to find that your esoteric interest in metadata is being used in such a pratical way for your employers.
Truly a dedicated contractor!
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