In another sign that the Freedom of Information Act has been furloughed, Parliament has refused to publish data revealing how often porn websites were visited on the parliamentary estate. They claim this refusal is on “national security” grounds, despite having previously published said data in 2013, 2015, and 2018. The Independent, who submitted the freedom of information request following the Neil Parish scandal, were told by Parliamentary authorities that not only would the request not be answered, they’ve retroactively deleted the previous disclosures from its website. Even No. 10, hardly keen answerers of FoI requests, was happy to publish their figures in 2021, with no such ‘national security’ concerns…

According to the full response, there is “a legitimate public interest in the House of Commons being open and transparent”, however:

“disclosure of this information would cause substantial risks to the parliamentary network as it would aid malicious groups in their efforts to target the network” as “both the disclosure of either specific web addresses, categories that are blocked, or totals relating to attempts or access, could provide valuable information to those wishing to bypass our security systems”.

They claim this is because publishing the information “would make the extent of the Parliamentary Network’s blocking and filtering policies public knowledge”. Absolutely laughable…