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Reference number	FOI2025-00213
Date of request	13 March 2024
Date of response	10 April 2024
Outcome	Information withheld

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (the department) received the following request for information which we responded to under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA):

Our response

We can confirm that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (the department) does hold the information in scope of your request but we have withheld this information under section 14 (vexatious requests).

Section 14: Vexatious requests (single burdensome request)

All of the information which you have requested is exempt from disclosure under section 14 of the FOIA because complying with the request would place a grossly oppressive burden on the department鈥檚 resources. Section 14 states:

Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the request is vexatious.

A single request taken in isolation may be vexatious solely on the grounds of burden. That is, where complying with the request would place a grossly oppressive burden on the resources of the department which outweighs any value or serious purpose the request may have.

The issue was considered in ). The ICO argued that if the burden imposed by a voluminous request was the public authority鈥檚 primary concern it should first look at the application of section 12 and determine whether dealing with the request would exceed the appropriate cost limit. However, the Tribunal found that:

A request may be so grossly oppressive in terms of the resources and time demanded by compliance as to be vexatious, regardless of the intentions or bona fides of the requester. If so, it is not prevented from being vexatious just because the authority could have relied instead on s.12 [section 12 of the FOIA]. (paragraph 15).

This was further confirmed in in which, at paragraph 27, the Upper Tribunal agreed with the ICO that:

In some cases, the burden of complying with the request will be sufficient, in itself, to justify characterising that request as vexatious, and such a conclusion is not precluded if there is a clear public interest in the information requested. Rather, the public interest in the subject matter of a request is a consideration that itself needs to be balanced against the resource implications of the request, and any other relevant factors, in a holistic determination of whether a request is vexatious.

The explains that public authorities are likely to have a viable case to refuse a request on the grounds of grossly oppressive burden where:

• the requester has asked for a substantial volume of information; and

• you have real concerns about potentially exempt information, which you are able to substantiate, if asked to do so by the ICO; and

• you cannot easily isolate any potentially exempt information because it is scattered throughout the requested material.

Your request meets each of these criteria. Our searches have returned a substantial volume of data which contains information unrelated to the issue of The Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP鈥檚 ChatGPT history which the department would seek to withhold under a number of exemptions. Under the current scope of your request, it would not be possible to easily isolate any potentially exempt information because it is spread throughout the material you have requested.

Advice and assistance

You may consider narrowing the scope of your request which we could consider so that it is less likely to be too burdensome for the department to comply. You could do so by narrowing your request to a specific category of information (for example, the first component of your request for information relating to an email with a specific subject line), by narrowing your request to information relating to specific ministers or senior officials, or by narrowing your request to information relating to a specific team or function.