I think FoIs are a good idea generally, something the public and watchdogs can use to ensure agencies and departments are working as we expect them to. However Philip Morris has submitted a request to Stirling University for data on teenage smokers.

Read more at the BBC here.

No doubt PM are expecting that a publicly funded operation will have to provide this information.

If thems the rules thems the rules.
You cant decide oh we dont like the person/company who have requested the information so we wont give it to them.

I would have thought that this information could be used to undermine public health measures and on that basis alone should be not allowed. It would also give this company a competitive advantage over their competitors. If the information has to be provided then redact all personal information and only group individual data in a way that guarantees anonymity. Though longer term this type of request should be disqualified as it is not for the public good.

That line of reasoning would mean the vast amount of FOI requests could be refused. Where would you stop. Who decides what is in the public good. In this case the commissioner has decided that the request is a legitimate request and thus the relevant information should be handed over.

No need to worry about any personnel information or anonymity.

If this was ASH asking for that information then there would be no furore about it.Publicly funded research should always be available to anyone who asks for it, if it is a legitimate request.

What is determined as the public good now may not be in the future or even correct, just look at the decision on how the alcohol unit intake came about. It has no foundation in any scientific fact or theory but was decided because the ministers wanted a number.

Yes but ASH are not a commercial organisation. I do not think that all commercial FoI requests should be banned. There are occasions such as the press who publish the information to a wider audience, should not be constrained. The problem is that if a university researchs some technique that they plan to license to a third party what is to stop another party demanding all the information as a FoI request effectively stripping that university of income?

ASH are a private entity that is driven by an agenda (as are in this case PMI)


if it as privately funded or a private company funded the research then it wouldn't be covered by a FOI



If research is done that will be used to formulate governmental policy or influence it whether it be about tobacco, food or alcohol (as examples) using public money then the findings and the data used to formulate the conclusions should be made public (minus any identifying or personnel information)for anyone to look at.

Yes but not all research is privately funded. It would mean the complete end to blue skies funding in this country.

No it wouldnt.
Has the FOI act caused an end to "blue sky" research...nope.
It still goes on. The standpoint of the FOI commissioner (and the FOI act itself) is that if the research is funded out of public money then anyone having a relevant reason can ask to have a copy of that research.

What the FOI act has done is ensure that:

1) certain organisations have to spend loads of our money resourcing answering predominantly stupid questions.

2) ensuring that data is deleted at the earliest opportunity so questions cannot be answered.

Don't get me wrong, transparency of public bodies and valid information being made available I am totally up for. However the vast majority of questions asked are people being silly and costing taxpayers millions.

As it is a research project by a university then surely the results would be published anyway. Are PM trying to get hold of the raw data?

Just like all the global warming research was?
As this research is likely to form or have formed the arguments about things like the plain packaging proposals. If the data doesn't support the conclusions then it will allow pmi to legally contest those decisions.
Just like when the EPA originally declared passive smoking as dangerous, they used some really dodgy techniques to get the data to say what they had all ready been decided.

Generally speaking the anonymised data will be published as an appendix to the academic paper anyway. But that's probably not what the request is asking for I suspect. It would be illegal, even under a FoI request, to give out data which allowed individual subjects to be identified, as that would be a clear breach of the data protection act.

Jon

Tobacco giants tell Whitehall to hand over its secret minutes

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 47907.html

The results of the studies have indeed been published in peer reviewed journals.
I get the impression however that PMI are interested in the participants responses concerning the effectiveness of tobacco advertising. A tobacco company simply wouldn't be able to obtain this information itself, as the age group targeted in the study are under the legal age for smoking. Trying to improve marketing material for people who are under legal age isn't exactly going to go down well but that's what I think PMI are effectively trying to do, however much they want to hide it.

The trouble with FOI requests that target sensitive data or confidential meetings are that it will ultimately impede open discussion and debate as people will be concerned that it'll ultimately end up in the public domain, or be used for commercial purposes for which it was never intended.

I do note however that the information commissioner didn't exactly say that the University was wrong to reject the request but rather that the reason chosen for the initial rejection (a vexatious inquiry) was not satisfactory so maybe there is some hope that the IC has at least a modicum of common sense and will apply it.

I don't see how, tobacco advertising is already banned in the United Kingdom, first in Scotland, and then in England and Wales & Northern Ireland by the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002.