Dear Mr Elsdon-Baker,

Thank you for your email of 25 September 2009 where you have requested information about the trial to enrol biometrics for foreign nationals at 17 Crown Post Offices. This falls to be dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We are considering your information request. Although the Freedom of Information Act carries a presumption in favour of disclosure, it provides exemptions which may be used to withhold information in specified circumstances. Some of these exemptions are subject to a public interest test. These exemptions are known as qualified exemptions. The public interest test is used to balance the public interest in disclosure against the public interest in favour of withholding the information under qualified exemptions. Section 10(3) of the Act allows us to exceed the 20 working day response target where reasonably necessary to consider the public interest test fully. This is subject to us telling applicants when we expect to conclude our deliberations and provide a full response.

The information requested must be considered under the exemption[s] contained within section 43 of the Act. This is a qualified exemption relating to commercial interests. In order to consider the public interest test fully we need to extend the 20 working day response period, and now aim to respond by 20th November.

Should you have any queries about the handling of your information request then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Eleanor West

Communications and Stakeholder Management  

Identity Cards for Foreign Nationals (ICFN) Programme

Immigration Group