Why you can’t request external reviews via Right to Know

We’ve recently updated the page for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, also known as the OAIC, to make it clear people can’t use Right to Know to make FOI review applications. We’ve done this after seeing an increase in the number of external review requests and complaints being made via Right to Know.

The OAIC is a unique authority. They process external reviews and complaints for FOI, as well as privacy complaints. You can also make a request directly to them for information. 

Right to Know was not initially built to handle reviews, and can’t tell the difference between a review and a request, which is why it’s not suitable for external reviews.

We understand this might be frustrating to some, however there’s a few reasons for this:

• When you make a request via Right to Know your request is automatically sent to the FOI team. The OAIC has a different team for handling reviews and complaints. This means your review will need to be forwarded, increasing the risk it will be delayed or even lost.
• The logic that powers Right to Know assumes that you’re making a FOI request, not an external review. This logic is used to set the status (for example, “long overdue”), as well as changes behind the scenes that prevent spam. The impact of this can range from confusion on the status (a FOI review may not be “long overdue”) all the way to emails not being delivered properly.
• Right to Know uses a unique email address to track each request on the site. When you make an external review, another email address is created (1 for the original request, and 1 for the review). This makes it harder for the authority and the OAIC to know what email address they should respond to. It also results in emails ending up on multiple requests on the site, which causes confusion for everyone and can take a lot of time to clean up.

We understand anonymity is one of the many benefits that people value when making their requests on Right to Know. If you need to make an external review request and would like to protect your anonymity, consider:

• Using an email address not linked to your normal email address or real name.
• If you use a pseudonym on Right to Know, use the same pseudonym when making your review request to the OAIC.
• Keep your original request updated by adding annotations to your original request. Consider putting the OAIC reference number in your first annotation, so they know you are the person who made the review request.

Would you find it useful to be able to make external review requests directly in Right to Know? Let us know by completing this quick survey.