FOI Request - Review of 101003815910 School Digital Device Protections

Request 101003847374

Review of 101003815910 School Digital Device Protections

Dear Information Governance Manager and Data Protection Officer,

Thank you for your response to our information request (101003815910). I am requesting a review of the council's response as some information requested was not provided and no valid reason given for the ommissions.

In Question 3/ we asked the filtering status of three particular sites, and if blocked, the date on which they were confirmed as blocked.

Blocking a site is a child safety intervention that would require the deliberate act of an engineer or suppliers working under the direction of the council. The council therefore either would have requested these specific blocks (and so the date would be known) or should know the list of sites blocked by their supplier (and so should know the date that the blocks were installed).

Please can you therefore add the requested date information for sites a/ and c/ that were blocked.

If the council does not hold a log of what sites are blocked and on what dates, please can you confirm that the council holds no such detailed tracking record of what is blocked and what is not blocked for child access.

Response 29-09-2025

Following your request for a review (our ref: 101003847374) of your Freedom of Information (FOI) Request – School Digital Device Protections (our ref: 101003815910) - a review meeting was held on 17th September 2025. In attendance were the Information Governance Manager and Data Protection Officer, ICT Manager (Infrastructure), Senior ICT Officer, Solicitor, and Information Co-ordinator.

Your FOI Request (ref: 101003815910) from 1st July 2025 was discussed.

You asked for our response to question 3a) and c) to be reviewed. We will look at our response to your question 3 a) and c) in turn:

Regarding question 3a), we confirm that Yahoo search is indeed blocked and that the date this took place is not held.
Moray Council uses Smoothwall web filtering. Smoothwall operates by automatically assigning web URLs to pre-defined, inbuilt categories based on various criteria. Moray Council ICT established a baseline, default configuration by choosing which of these inbuilt categories to allow or deny access to for students. Smoothwall will routinely add and remove categories, and URLs may be subject to recategorization via regular policy updates.

Yahoo search is blocked for students as it is classified within a blocked category within the baseline configuration - as such the blocking of the site was not a deliberate act. This is confirmed to date back at least 10 years, but exact dates are not held due to the nature of the product

Regarding question 3c), we confirm that Wikipedia is not blocked as such, it is just that, as per our original response, it is limited with no images or media files accessible – all Wikimedia-related sites are rendered text-only. This was implemented following students accessing and uploading inappropriate content, so this category of websites was limited; the date this took place is not held.

We uphold our original response of “not held”. In hindsight, we should have made clear for question 3 that information that is not held is exempt under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held. We would like apologise for any inconvenience caused.