5.6 Data protection, freedom of information and confidentiality
All External Examiner’s Reports and minutes of meetings of Boards of Examiners are treated confidentially. However owing to provision within the Data Protection Act 1998, which took full effect on 1 March 2000, an External Examiner should be aware of the following:
- students have the right to a copy of any personal information held about them by the University upon submitting in writing a subject access request, and the University will normally provide upon request marks and comments made on examination scripts;
- the minutes of meetings of Boards of Examiners may constitute personal data accessible by students making a subject access request. External Examiners are advised therefore that such data might well be disclosed if requested, and that confidentiality cannot be guaranteed.
External Examiners should also be aware of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) which came into effect on 1 January 2005. It gives members of the public a statutory right to obtain, subject to certain exemptions, any recorded information held by the University regardless of when it was created or by whom. Under this legislation the University may be required to provide copies of any External Examiner’s report to any third party who makes a request for them. All requests for information under FOISA need to be considered on a case by case basis. Where a report focuses on an identifiable individual however, the report would not be released under FOISA since such information would fall under the terms of the Data Protection Act.