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3.1 Section 24 is a qualified exemption, which means that after deciding whether the information requested should be withheld for the purpose of safeguarding national security, the department must also consider whether the public interest might nonetheless be served by making disclosure.
3.2 The test to be applied when considering whether to claim a section 24 exemption is not whether the information relates to national security but whether the exemption is required for the purpose of safeguarding national security. That is, to claim the exemption it must be possible to identify an undesirable effect on national security, or the risk of such an undesirable effect, that claiming the exemption would prevent.
3.3 When considering whether non-disclosure of a particular piece of information is required in order to safeguard national security, it is important to consider whether its release, could, if put together with other available information, cause damage. The point being that a piece of information cannot be divorced from its context and looked at in isolation. In justifying such an approach, decision-makers must be quite clear that specific harmful effects of disclosure are reasonably to be expected, including whether there are real and substantial grounds for the expectation.
3.4 When applying the exemption, officials must clearly record the justification for the decision. This justification will be carefully examined by the Information Commissioner or the Information Tribunal in the event that the refusal to provide the information sought is challenged. It is not necessary to obtain a signed Ministerial certificate to claim the exemption (see discussion of certificates below) but careful consideration should also be given as to how a case would be made to a Minister were a certificate needed later.
3.5 In deciding whether information is exempt information for the purposes of section 24, a department must consider two things:
3.6 It is self evident that the assessment leading to the conclusion that disclosure should be withheld will have embraced some relevant public interest issues. Nonetheless, where it is determined that the exemption is required to safeguard national security there will still be a separate and distinct need to consider any further competing public interests in order to decide if the public interest test is satisfied. The department must be seen to have considered first, whether the information needs to be withheld for the purposes of safeguarding national security and secondly, if so, whether in all the circumstances of the case, is it in the public interest to maintain the exemption.
3.7 There is obviously a very strong public interest in safeguarding national security. If non-disclosure is required to safeguard national security it is likely to be only in exceptional circumstances that consideration of other public interest factors will result in disclosure. The balance of the public interest in disclosure will depend in part on the nature and likelihood of the potential risk to national security, as well as the nature of the countervailing public interest considerations in making the information available. Each request for information will need to be judged on its individual merits on a case by case basis.
3.8 This process must be gone through whenever a section 24 exemption is claimed, whether or not a certificate is deployed. See below for more information about certificates.
3.9 If the information requested originated in another department the originator of the information should always be consulted before a final decision to disclose is reached.
3.10 In most departments holding national security information there will be officials who you can turn to for advice in difficult cases, normally your departmental security officer. When dealing with round-robin requests you should consult the FOI co-ordination unit.
3.11 The section 24 exemption applies to all records, regardless of their age, including historical records. It is possible that the sensitivity of section 24 information may diminish with the passage of time once the records in which the information is contained has become an historical record. Each instance should be judged on a case by case basis, consulting as appropriate.