The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 establishes a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public authorities, sets out exemptions from that right and places a number of obligations on public authorities. The Act applies to all public authorities, including Universities and Further Education Colleges which are in receipt of public funding. Full access rights under the Freedom of Information Act came into force on 1 January 2005.

JISCMail is a conduit for the discussion and expression of opinions that the UK centered academic community chooses to share across their respective forums in connection with their work.

The original poster of the information is responsible for the content and owns the copyright of the messages posted by them.

The list owner is responsible for managing the list membership and for deciding whether the list is Public or Private.

Access rights to lists differ; on Public lists messages are visible to anybody via the list homepage (https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/nameoflist), whereas on Private lists messages are visible to the members of the particular list and are posted with an expectation that they will be treated as confidential by those list members.

The JISCMail service is currently operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).  STFC servers receive and store postings made onto a JISCMail list, however STFC does not use this information for its own purposes and therefore does not “hold” the information for the purposes of the FoI Act 2000. (Reference: Section 3 of the Act http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/3)

Freedom of Information requests regarding the JISCmail service should be sent by email to the JISCMail helpline - helpline@jiscmail.ac.uk or in writing to:

JISCMail
F16 R89
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Didcot
OX11 0QX