‘Deleted’ Government records needn’t necessarily be treated as deleted after all, according to a ruling by the Information Tribunal, which deals with appeals against rulings under the Freedom of Information Act. “The Tribunal understands that information which is held electronically and then deleted (and even emptied later from a ‘recycle bin’ or ‘trash can’) is still in fact retained in its original form on the computer system until it is subsequently and actually overwritten by other information.” In view of this “it may be incumbent on a Public Authority to make attempts to retrieve deleted information. Accordingly the authority should establish whether information is completely eliminated, or merely deleted.”
The Register – Undelete those deleted emails, FOIA ruling tells Government
