INFORMATION COMPLIANCE TEAM
University Offices, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JD
Ref. FOI/20200801/3
27 August 2020
Reply to request for information under the Freedom of Information Act
Your ref
Email of 1 August 2020
_
For the academic year 2018/2019, 2017/2018, and 2016/2017, could I please have the total
number of applications received and offers made for MSc Psychological Research, grouped by
Request
the applicants’ university.
Also, could I please have a list of grades achieved by the offer holders as well
Dear David Watson,
I write in reply to your email of Saturday 1 August, requesting the above information.
Please find the requested information in the attached workbook.
We consider that disclosure of this information in the form requested might enable those with access to other
information or knowledge to identify individuals and learn new information about those individuals, including
whether or not they submitted successful applications. For this reason, we have taken the following measures
to reduce the risk of breaching data protection requirements:
• We have provided data for the three year period as a whole, rather than for each year.
• We have provided the grade data as aggregated data only.
• We have provided data on previous institution only in relation to institutions that contributed
successful applications.
In taking this measure, we are applying the exemption in section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA). Section 40(2) provides an exemption from disclosure for information that is the personal data of an
individual other than the requester, where disclosure would breach any of the data protection principles in Article
5 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We consider that disclosure of the information requested
in the exact form requested would breach the first data protection principle, which requires that personal data
is processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. Disclosure would be unfair to the individuals concerned,
as it would be contrary to their reasonable and legitimate expectations. They would not reasonably expect that
information relating to their application to Oxford would be made public under the FOIA without their consent.
For the disclosure of personal data to be lawful, it must have a lawful basis under Article 6 of the GDPR. There
are six possible lawful bases in Article 6; we do not consider that any of them would be satisfied in respect of
the disclosure.
The exemption in section 40(2) is an absolute exemption and is not subject to the public interest test provided
for in section 2(2)(b) of the FOIA. To the extent that the public interest is relevant in this case, the University
considers it is satisfied by the information provided.
2
Yours sincerely
Information Compliance Team
