Petition · past parliament
Delete "journalism, art or literature" exemptions from the FOI Act
Closed
210 signatures
What the petition asks
Schedule 1, Part VI of the Freedom Of Information Act 2000 lists a number of organisations granted special exemption, where the Act only applies to information "held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature". This is misused to reject ANY FOI requests they'd rather not answer.
They use a very loose interpretation of this exemption to support these rejections, as everything they do can be linked back to one of these three categories.
They make frequent use of the Act to interrogate other public sector organisations in their journalistic research, yet use the JAoL clause to shield themselves from similar investigation.
We therefore request that these exemptions be deleted from the FOI Act, leaving them open to the same level of scrutiny as other public bodies.
They make frequent use of the Act to interrogate other public sector organisations in their journalistic research, yet use the JAoL clause to shield themselves from similar investigation.
We therefore request that these exemptions be deleted from the FOI Act, leaving them open to the same level of scrutiny as other public bodies.
Timeline
| 9 Aug 2016 | Petition opened for signatures |
| 9 Feb 2017 | Closed to new signatures |
Key facts
Signatures
210
Status
Closed
Opened
9 Aug 2016
Closed
9 Feb 2017
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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.