What makes a request trivial?

If an individual has asked for their own information, the starting point is that the individual is entitled to that information.

However, there are a number of withholding grounds which permit an agency to withhold personal information in certain limited circumstances.

One of the withholding grounds allows you to refuse to provide information where the information requested is trivial.

However, you should keep in mind that personal information which may seem trivial to you may still be important to the person who has requested it.

Information might be considered ‘trivial’ in cases where:

• It is a very small item of information contained within a large amount of information (this may also mean the information is not readily retrievable);

• It is a seemingly innocuous piece of information that the requester already knows or has been provided with; or

• The information does not really say anything about the requester. For example, the requester's name may be in the subject line of an email, but the email is actually about something else, or involves trivial administrative arrangements, such as setting a meeting time with the requester.