Decision
Mr. X & Office of the Revenue Commissioners (Revenue)
From Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC)
Case number: OIC-159815-W1Y2H4
Published on
From Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC)
Case number: OIC-159815-W1Y2H4
Published on
Whether Revenue was justified, under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act, in refusing a copy of a recording of an internal telephone call made between the applicant and another Revenue employee on the basis that the record does not exist
14 August 2025
On 22 January 2025, the applicant, an employee of Revenue, requested access to a copy of the recording of a telephone call he made to another Revenue staff member via Revenue’s internal telephone communications system. The applicant provided the date, the time, the length of the call, the location and the internal phone number for both himself and the other staff member. On 27 January 2025, Revenue refused the applicant’s request under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act on the basis that no record of the call could be found. Revenue said it does not record internal calls. On 4 February 2025, the applicant requested an internal review of Revenue’s decision and on 7 February 2025 Revenue affirmed its original decision. On 16 June 2025, the applicant applied to this Office for review of Revenue’s decision. He maintains that a record of the phone call should exist.
During the course of this review, the Investigating Officer provided the applicant with details of Revenue’s submissions in which it outlined the searches it had conducted and its reasons for concluding that the record sought does not exist or cannot be found. The Investigating Officer invited the applicant to make further submissions on his case, if he wished to do so. No reply was received.
I have now completed my review in accordance with section 22(2) of the FOI Act. In carrying out my review, I have had regard to the correspondence outlined above and to the submissions made by both parties. I have decided to conclude this review by way of a formal, binding decision.
This review is solely concerned with whether Revenue was justified in refusing access to the telephone recording sought by the applicant under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act.
Section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act provides for the refusal of a request where the records sought do not exist or cannot be found after all reasonable steps to ascertain their whereabouts have been taken. Our role in a case such as this is to review the decision of the FOI body and to decide whether that decision was justified. This means that I must have regard to the evidence available to the decision maker and the reasoning used by the decision maker in arriving at their decision and also must assess the adequacy of the searches conducted by the FOI body in looking for relevant records. The evidence in “search” cases generally consists of the steps actually taken to search for the records along with other information about the record management practices of the FOI body, insofar as those practices relate to the records in question.
The applicant’s submissions
In his application to this Office for review of the decision of Revenue on his FOI request, the applicant stated that since starting as a Revenue employee, he had always been told that internal calls made on the operator line are recorded. He added that, throughout 2024, he had telephoned his supervisor with queries when remote working, and that each time he had been advised by the supervisor that the call was being recorded and that he should hang up and call using his extension number instead. The applicant further stated that, following Revenue’s internal review decision, a member of IT confirmed to him that both internal and external calls made on the operator line are recorded. Finally, the applicant quoted a training document as stating, in substance, that calls made on all designated services are automatically recorded and that any internal call made on these services would be recorded.
Submissions by Revenue
In its submissions to this Office, Revenue provided background information about the telephone systems used by its staff. It said that there are two lines associated with its system: one is the staff member’s personal extension line, while the other is the operator line that allows staff who work as operators to log onto and make and receive calls via the call centre platform. Revenue explained that a staff member’s personal extension line number contains five digits and that calls made by staff on their personal extension line are not recorded. Revenue outlined that a staff member’s operator line number contains six digits (composed of the personal extension line number prefixed by a “0”) and that calls on the operator line are recorded. Revenue said that, in order to ensure compliance with GDPR, callers must be informed via an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) message that the call is being recorded and for what specific purpose the recording will be used. Revenue stated that call centre staff are instructed to only use the operator line for receiving or making calls when carrying out their duties as a call centre operator. Revenue said that staff are advised that they should use their personal line for all other functions (e.g. calls not being made as part of their call centre duties). In support of their statements regarding their telephone systems, Revenue provided a copy of a user guide that was issued to all Revenue staff in October 2024.
Revenue also provided a training document which had been quoted by the applicant in support of his contention that there should be a recording of his call. Revenue pointed out that that the “relevant” calls made on “designated” telephone services, mentioned by this document as being subject to recording, are calls made via operator line numbers, not those made on personal line numbers. Revenue specified that the excerpt quoted by the applicant is part of this broader training document that deals with taxpayer confidentiality and data protection and is relevant in that specific context.
Revenue identified a specific unit within the organisation that holds any calls recorded for the purpose of facilitating Quality Assurance checks. According to Revenue, all parts of an operator line call, including any part where a caseworker seeks advice from a manager during a call with a customer, are liable to QA checks. Revenue stated that this unit also has access to all call logs on the telephone system, irrespective of whether the call is recorded or not. Revenue provided an excerpt from their Record Retention Schedule to show that any recorded calls are retained for 6-12 months.
Revenue said that searches were conducted for this particular call recording in the areas that would be expected to hold the record if it existed, i.e. the specific unit it had previously identified. Revenue stated that this unit searched on the applicant’s operator line for the record that is the subject of his request but found that the record did not exist. Revenue added that the call log for the call in question was located, which confirmed that the call was made from the applicant’s five-digit personal line number and not from his operator line number. Revenue said that it follows that there was no IVR message on this call, that it was not recorded and that the record therefore does not exist. To support its statement, Revenue provided an excerpt from their call log which shows the time and date of the internal call and the five-digit number of the caller and the recipient. Both numbers that appear on the call log are the same numbers identified by the applicant in his request.
It is Revenue’s position that only calls made by staff using the operator line are recorded and that no calls using the personal extension line are recorded. In his application to this Office, the applicant noted that on previous occasions when he had telephoned his supervisor, he had been advised that the call was being recorded and that he should hang up and call using his personal extension number instead. Revenue has provided evidence in the form of a call log to show that the call in question was made from the applicant’s personal extension line number. The applicant does not dispute this. Revenue also said that the unit which holds records of telephone calls that are recorded carried out a search for the call in question and that no recording was found.
Having regard to the submissions before this Office, and in the absence of any evidence to suggest that further relevant searches ought to be undertaken, I am satisfied from the details provided by Revenue about its telephone recording practices and the searches it said it undertook that it has provided a reasonable explanation as to why the record sought does not exist. Accordingly, I find that Revenue was justified in refusing the applicant’s FOI request under section 15(1)(a) of the Act on the basis that the record does not exist or cannot be found after all reasonable steps to ascertain its whereabouts have been taken.
Having carried out a review under section 22(2) of the FOI Act, I hereby affirm Revenue’s decision to refuse the applicant’s FOI request for a recording of the telephone call in question under section 15(1)(a) of the FOI Act.
Section 24 of the FOI Act sets out detailed provisions for an appeal to the High Court by a party to a review, or any other person affected by the decision. In summary, such an appeal, normally on a point of law, must be initiated not later than four weeks after notice of the decision was given to the person bringing the appeal.
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Richard Crowley
Investigator