Redactions and Missing Emails: Home Office’s Response to Gatwick Drone FOI

Dear Requester,

Thank you for your e-mail of 23 October 2024, in which you request copies of the emails disclosed in the Freedom of Information Act request FOI2024/04564.

You specifically ask:

In FOIA FOI2024/04564 a small number of e-mails were identified, I’d like copies of those, I realise some redactions may be necessary. Note the DfT put it into the public domain that the Home Secretary approved the use of the Night Fighter jammer (in this FOIA: Gatwick “drone” related emails – a Freedom of Information request to Department for Transport – WhatDoTheyKnow) so that doesn’t need
redacting if it’s covered within this batch.

Your request has been handled as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In relation to your request above, we can confirm that the Home Office holds some of the information that you have requested, and we have disclosed this below. We have redacted certain information as this is exempt from disclosure by virtue of the exemptions listed under Sections 23 (Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters), 24 (National Security), 31 (Law Enforcement) 38 (Health and Safety), 40 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In relation to the email “Fwd: 20181220 – Home Secretary and Transport Secretary Call:

Gatwick Drone Incident 21/12/2018 07:36”, we have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home Office does not hold the information which you have requested.

In our initial response to FOI2024/04564, we identified the email title, time and date of each email received. The search did not recover the body of the email, only the specific information requested in the Freedom of Information Request. Following your current request FOI: 2024/08785, we conducted a thorough search of relevant mailboxes and shared drives but unfortunately the body of this particular email could not be found.

Regrettably, therefore, we have concluded that this specific information is not held. Information has been withheld under section 40(2) of the FOIA because of the condition at section 40(3A)(a) where this concerns the personal data of third parties. The Home Office has obligations under data protection legislation and in law generally to protect personal data. This exempts personal data from release if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. We believe release would breach the first data protection principle, since it would be unlawful and unfair to disclose the information.

Section 40 of the Act is an absolute exemption and not subject to the public interest test.

In the circumstances of this case, it is not appropriate to provide any information that was either supplied by, or relates to, one of the security bodies listed in section 23(3) of the FOIA.

We are therefore applying sections 23(1) (information supplied by or relating to security bodies) to part of your request. As the exemption at section 23(1) is an absolute exemption, no evidence of harm or assessment of the balance of the public interest is required to support its application.

Please find further details of these exemptions in the Annex to this letter. Refer below Annex for supporting details:

ANNEX: Exemptions Used
Section 23 Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters
Section 24 National Security
Section 31 Law Enforcement
Section 38 Health and Safety
Section 40 Personal Information
ANNEX: Public Interest Test (PIT)
Sections 24, 31 and 38 of the Act are qualified exemptions and require consideration of the public interest test. We have concluded the public interest lies in favour of withholding the information. The arguments we considered, both for and against disclosure, are set out in the Annex.

ANNEX: Original Request
ANNEX: Disclosed Information

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request by submitting a complaint within two months to [email protected], quoting reference 2024/08785.

If you ask for an internal review, it would be helpful if you could say why you are dissatisfied with the response.

As part of any internal review the Department’s handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. If you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you would have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information
Home Office