FOI_25-116 Communications

Date of response: 14 May 2025

We have now considered your request of 14 April 2025 for the following information:

 Firstly, this request is seeking copies of all emails containing certain keywords which are stored within the communal inboxes of the following teams within your university: A. Security team (or equivalent) B. The Office of the Vice Chancellor (or equivalent position) Please include within the scope of my request any emails within these inboxes that have been sent or received internally between your staff as well as emails with external third parties such as the police, other universities or bodies such as UniversitiesUK. N.B. If conducting searches of both of these shared inboxes would exceed the cost limit, then please restrict your searches to the inboxes used by the most senior person in each team. Secondly, this request is also seeking details of your staff's attendance of webinars run by the: A. Association of University Chief Security Officers (AUCSO) B. International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Officers (IACLEA) C. Association of University Legal Practitioners (AULP) 

Question 1. Copies of any and all emails (stored within the above-mentioned inboxes) sent or received by your staff since 1 October 2023 which contain ANY of the following words: A. Palestine B. Palestinian C. Gaza D. Encampment E. Protest.  For all emails disclosed in relation to Question 1, where the email containing the above-listed keyword(s) forms part of a longer email chain, please disclose a copy of the entire email chain.  Please also provide any: A. Documents/images attached to those emails  B. A working version of any hyperlinks exchanged in those emails 

Our response: 

Please see accompanying documents FOI_25-116 Appendix A and FOI_25-116 Appendix B. 

On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request. 

In line with s.40(2) of the Act we have removed certain personal data from Appendix A and B. 

We believe that some of the requested information, specifically the names, job titles, telephone numbers and departments constitute the personal data of these individuals, as defined by Article 4(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).   

We believe that disclosure of the personal information relating to these individuals would be contrary to the requirements of Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR; namely that information must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. These individuals would have no expectation that this information would be made publicly available, and we have not identified a lawful basis that would allow or require us to disclose this information. 

Where information has been removed from the accompanying file we have replaced the text with a black rectangle. 

On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request: 

We believe that s.41(1) exempts the release of the requested information because it was obtained in confidence from a third party, and the disclosure of the information to the public would constitute a breach of confidence by ourselves actionable by the third party. 

The information is by no means trivial and is not in the public domain, it contains highly sensitive information including but not limited to special category data, complaints, incident reports, confidential disclosures. Some of the information in question consists of personal data that was shared with a reasonable expectation of confidentiality. Disclosure would likely cause distress or harm to the individual concerned and would breach the common law duty of confidence. The information has the necessary degree of confidence about it and was provided to us in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence, the information includes highly confidential, important, sensitive information.   By placing this information in the public domain, the information would be open to unauthorised use and place individuals at risk of harm. 

It is our belief that disclosure of the requested information would constitute a breach of confidence actionable by a third party. 

We are aware that the common law duty of confidence contains an inherent public interest test, which must be considered in order to decide if the information is exempt. Confidential information should be withheld unless the public interest in disclosure outweighs the public interest in maintaining the duty of confidence. Having applied this test, we see no advantage to the public in receiving the requested information and consider that disclosure would undermine the principle of confidentiality and that this far outweighs any benefit that the disclosure would present for the public. 

On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request: 

Some of the requested information contains sensitive information specifically; security intelligence, investigative techniques; security procedures; security incident reports, witness identities, all of which is confidential in nature and none of which is in the public domain.  It is our opinion that disclosing this information into the public domain is likely to prejudice the prevention and detection of crime.  

Release of any information under the Act represents a disclosure to the world at large; therefore, we must consider the likely impact of information about the University being made publicly available.  

As with other higher education institutions, the security of the institution's assets, buildings and people [including but not limited to students, staff and members of the public] is important to the University. Maintaining the security of the University’s assets, buildings and protecting students, staff and members of the public is a significant challenge. Ensuring the appropriate level of security is in place is a major factor contributing towards overall security.  

The University are withholding details of these communications to prevent exploitation by malicious actors; to avoid undermining their effectiveness and to protect witness identities and sensitive intelligence that if released could endanger live or hinder justice.   

If we were to disclose information all of the communications requested containing the following the words [Gaza; Palestine; Palestinian; Encampment; Protest] including attachments, documents; hyperlinks]  this would undermine our security systems and place members of the public, students and staff at risk of harm.    

A malicious motivated individual or group would use this information to exploit the University’s security systems, seek ways to undermine and hinder the security which could endanger lives and hinder justice. 

Having determined that disclosure of this information would expose the University to a real and significant risk of crime, application of the s.31(1) exemption also requires us to consider the public interest in withholding or disclosing this information. 

The factors in favour of disclosure would include: 

·                Increasing public understanding of the operating procedures; investigative techniques; and security measures in place at the University. 

·                Enhancing the transparency and openness and consequently the public confidence in the integrity and probity of the security at the University. 

Factors in favour of withholding the information are largely laid out in the explanation for the use of the exemption above but would include: 

·                Protecting the ability of public authorities to protect valuable public assets acquired with public funds  

·                There is stronger public interest in ensuring that security  functions are not compromised and that individuals are not put at risk. 

After consideration of the above factors, we believe, on balance, that the public interest lies in maintaining the exemption. 

Question 2. Copies of all notes taken by any and all members of your staff who attended the “Encampments and Protests on Campus” webinar on 29th October 2024 run by the AULP. Please include any documents circulated in connection with the webinar, including resources downloaded from the AULP website. A link to the website is available here:  AULP : Association of University Legal Practitioners 

Our response:  

On this occasion it is not possible to provide any of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the University does not hold any recorded information for copies of notes taken by any and all of university staff members attending the ‘Encampments and protests on campus’ webinar on 29^th October. There is no recorded information that University staff attended this webinar run by AULP, therefore we hold to copies of any notes taken. 

Question 3. A list of all meetings/workshops/webinars attended by your staff which were run by AUCSO and/or IACLEA since 1 June 2024. Please provide copies of any documents circulated to attendees in connection with those meetings/workshops/webinars. 

Our response:  

On this occasion it is not possible to provide all of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the university does not hold any recorded information for a list of all meetings/workshops/webinars attended by our staff, which were run by AUCSO and/or IACLEA since 01 June 2024, nor do we hold any copies of documents circulated to attendees. There is no recorded information that University staff have attended any such workshops or meetings in the requested period.