Dear Mr Cripps,

Thank you for your email of 14 November 2022. We acknowledge receipt of
this email under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“The Act”).

Please be advised, the Act allows us up to 20 working days (excluding any
UK statutory holidays) to process a valid request for information. We may,
however, need to contact you if we require any clarifications on your
request. If no clarifications are required, you should expect to receive a
response on or before 12 December 2022.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

FOI Team - Translink

[1][email address]

[2]A close-up of a logo Description automatically generated with medium
confidence

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Dear Mr Cripps,

Freedom of Information Act 2000- (Our Reference: FOI1274)

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request of 14 November 2022. You
have requested information pertaining to Translink’s Northern Ireland
Railway Station/on platform announcements, specifically, a copy of all
pre-recorded announcements in use on NI Railways, including both manually
played announcements such as ticketing information, and also automatically
triggered content such as next stop and destination announcements.

As required by section 1(1)(a) Freedom of Information Act (the “Act”), we
can confirm that we do hold the information specified in your request.
However, this information is considered as exempt from disclosure. Please
note Translink’s response below.

Response

We consider this information as exempt from release under section 43(2) of
the Act, relating to ‘information where disclosure would be likely to
prejudice commercial interests’ for the reasons set out below.

As required by section 43(2), we have balanced the public interest in
withholding the information against the public interest in disclosure.

The recordings are the intellectual property of Translink and Translink’s
supplier(s) procured for this service, as they were created for Translink
on the assurance that the recordings would be used for the sole purpose
for which they were created - for broadcast on Translink’s network only.
If we were to release this information, the intellectual property of our
supplier(s) would be left vulnerable to duplication by competitors.

While Translink would wish to be as transparent as possible, in our view,
a lack of candour or an unwillingness to negotiate would be generated
amongst suppliers, fearful that by entering into an arrangement with
Translink, they would be placing their services at risk of publication and
therefore, at risk of being undermined.

As a consequence, the long-term effect would be a reduction in Translink’s
ability to negotiate and to achieve best value in its use of public funds
when attempting to engage companies in those fields. This result would,
ironically, run contrary to any aim of encouraging openness and value for
money in the public interest. Translink wishes to protect its commercial
interests and ability to participate in future commercial activity and the
disclosure of this information would be to the detriment of present and
future business activities for both parties.

It is asserted, therefore, that the balance of the public interest in
maintaining the exemption, outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

Review Procedure

If you are not satisfied with this response you may request a review by
writing to the Translink General Counsel and Company Secretary, who has
overall responsibility for Freedom of Information and Data Protection
issues within this organisation. Correspondence should be addressed to the
above-mentioned at: Translink, 22 Great Victoria Street, Belfast BT2 7LX
or by email to [1][NITHCo / Translink request email].

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
of appeal to the Information Commissioner who will make an independent
judgement. The address of the Information Commissioner is: Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. The address of the Information
Commissioner’s Office for Northern Ireland is: 3rd floor, 14 Cromac Place,
Gasworks, Belfast, BT7 2JB.

Yours sincerely,

The FOI/DPA Team

[2][email address]

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