Accounts that have been blocked and muted by TFL on Twitter.

The request was partially successful.

Dear Transport for London,

I would like to know for each of your Twitter accounts that you operate how many accounts are currently blocked and how many accounts are currently muted. For example how many accounts are blocked on @tfl and how many accounts are muted on @tfl and then how many accounts are blocked on @wlooandcityline and how many accounts are muted on @wlooandcityline and then so on for each of the 20+ Twitter accounts that you operate (im not entirely sure of these exact number of accounts you operate but i am requesting details for all of them). Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Steven Miller

FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Miller

 

Our Ref:         FOI-0552-1819

 

Thank you for your request received on 1 June 2018 asking for information
about accounts which have been blocked by TfL’s Twitter accounts.

 

Your request will be processed by TfL, the Greater London Authority and
its subsidiaries to provide you with a response in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

 

A response will be sent to you by 29 June 2018. We publish a substantial
range of information on our website on subjects including operational
performance, contracts, expenditure, journey data, governance and our
financial performance. This includes data which is frequently asked for in
FOI requests or other public queries. Please check
[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transpar... to see if this helps you.

 

We will publish anonymised versions of requests and responses on the
[2]www.tfl.gov.uk website. We will not publish your name and we will send
a copy of the response to you before it is published on our website.

 

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[3][TfL request email]

 

 

 

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FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Miller

 

Our Ref:          FOI-0552-1819

 

Thank you for your request received on 1 June 2018 asking for information
about accounts which have been blocked by TfL’s Twitter accounts.

 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can
confirm we do hold the information you require.

 

The majority of accounts we block/mute are not people but mostly automated
accounts.

Our process does not limit the user’s ability to see TfL’s social media
posts. We understand if customers are unhappy about a particular issue and
would not block/mute their account unless they are abusive.

Blocking/muting of an account ensures that we will no longer have to view
the offensive or spam content that a particular account is sending to us.
This means that the team in the Contact Centre are not subjected to this
content and it also makes our processes more efficient, as it removes the
multiple spam tweets that bots or trolls might send us from the inbox of
tweets we monitor.

 

Please find below a breakdown of our accounts and the number of muted and
block accounts that sit within them:

 

Number of Number of
muted blocked
Account Link accounts accounts
@TfL [1]www.twitter.com/tfl 0 2
@TfLAccess [2]www.twitter.com/tflaccess 0 1
@TfLTravelAlerts [3]www.twitter.com/tfltravelalerts 0 9
@TfLTrafficNews [4]www.twitter.com/tfltrafficnews 48 111
@TfLBusAlerts [5]www.twitter.com/tflbusalerts 1 47
@bakerlooline [6]www.twitter.com/bakerlooline 0 1
@centralline [7]www.twitter.com/centralline 0 1
@circleline [8]www.twitter.com/circleline 0 1
@districtline [9]www.twitter.com/districtline 0 2
@hamandcityline [10]www.twitter.com/hamandcityline 0 1
@jubileeline [11]www.twitter.com/jubileeline 0 1
@metline [12]www.twitter.com/metline 0 2
@northernline [13]www.twitter.com/northernline 0 1
@piccadillyline [14]www.twitter.com/piccadillyline 0 1
@victorialine [15]www.twitter.com/victorialine 0 1
@wlooandcityline [16]www.twitter.com/wlooandcityline 0 1
@LondonDLR [17]www.twitter.com/londondlr 0 1
@LDNOverground [18]www.twitter.com/ldnoverground 0 2
@TfLRail [19]www.twitter.com/tflrail 0 4
@TramsLondon [20]www.twitter.com/tramslondon 0 1
@EmiratesAirLDN [21]www.twitter.com/emiratesairldn 0 1
@SantanderCycles [22]www.twitter.com/santandercycles 0 1
@TfLRiver [23]www.twitter.com/tflriver 0 1
@elizabethline [24]www.twitter.com/elizabethline 1 3
@TfLTPH [25]www.twitter.com/tfltph 11 40
@TfLPA [26]www.twitter.com/tflpa 0 0
@TfLLGBT [27]www.twitter.com/tfllgbt 0 6
@AOTULondon [28]www.twitter.com/aotulondon 30 1
@Crossrail2 [29]www.twitter.com/crossrail2 9 0
@tube [30]www.twitter.com/tube 0 0

 

Of the above figures there are three accounts that have been blocked by
more than one TfL twitter account.

 

If this is not the information you are looking for please feel free to
contact me.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[31][TfL request email]

 

 

 

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FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Miller

 

IRV-035-1819

 

I am contacting you regarding your request for an internal review
concerning the application of s40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act to
your request (FOI-0552-1819). Please accept my apologies for the delay in
responding.

 

The information Commissioners guidance on s40(2) of the Freedom of
Information Act provides the following advise:

 

If the information constitutes the personal data of third parties, public
authorities should consider whether disclosure would breach the data
protection principles under the General Data Protection Regulations
(GDPR). The GDPR forms part of the data protection regime in the UK,
together with the new Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). Principle (a)
under Article 5(1) is the most applicable. The public authority can only
consider a disclosure of personal data if to do so would be fair, lawful
and satisfy one of the conditions listed in Article 9 of the GDPR.

 

Assessing whether disclosure is fair involves considering the following:

 

•           whether the information is sensitive personal data;

•           the possible consequences of disclosure on the individual(s)
concerned;

•           the reasonable expectations of the individual,

•           whether there is a legitimate interest in the public or
requester having access to the information and the balance between this
and the rights and freedoms of the data subjects.

 

If the disclosure would not be fair, the information must not be
disclosed. Lawful means that the disclosure must not breach statute or
common law, a duty of confidence or an enforceable contractual term. If an
Article 9 condition is not met, the information must not be disclosed.

 

The GDPR only permits the disclosure of an individual’s personal
information to a third party in very limited circumstances, and usually
requires the application of one of the exemptions in the Data Protection
Act (DPA). In this case none of the relevant exemptions would apply and in
any event, as described in our response on 18 June 2018, any disclosure
would still need to be consistent with one of the conditions of the DPA.
In this case we do not agree with your assertions that “anyone can just
easily go on Twitter and view anyone’s Twitter account. This is all
public” as individuals can choose who can view their twitter accounts and
tweets using the privacy settings available to them through their social
media accounts. If an individual has been ‘blocked’ or ‘muted’ by another
party this is not automatically made public knowledge and the individual
concerned would have a legitimate expectation that this information would
be confidential and not disclosed into the public domain by a third
without their prior consent.

 

There is no appropriate or legitimate activity that would be satisfied
under Article 9 of the GDPR to allow disclosure of this information
without breaching principle (a).  It is not only your intended use of the
data that needs to be lawful, TfL’s disclosure of any personal data also
needs to be lawful, and in this case it would not be as it is not
compliant with the GDPR, for the reason described above. Therefore your
complaint has not been upheld.

 

Further information on the Data Protection Act and section 40 of the
Freedom of Information Act can be found on the Information Commissioners
website:

 

https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

 

[1]https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...

 

If you are dissatisfied with the internal review actions to date you can
refer the matter to the independent authority responsible for enforcing
the Freedom of Information Act, at the following address:

 

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

 

A complaint form is also available on the ICO’s website
([2]www.ico.org.uk).

 

Yours sincerely

 

Emma Flint

Principal Information Access Adviser

FOI Case Management Team

Transport for London

[3][TfL request email]

 

 

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References

Visible links
1. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...
2. http://www.ico.org.uk/
3. mailto:[TfL request email]
4. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/