A correspondence officer for the Cabinet Office in the United Kingdom has stated that no effort to amend the Freedom of Information Act will be made to modify the personal data exclusion. The statement on behalf of the “policy team” was in response to a proposal to close an academic fraud loophole that permits Republic of China in-exile President Tsai Ing-wen to keep the identity of her PhD thesis examiners secret.
“The Government considers that the existing definition of personal data works well and does not intend to create a new definition, or change the existing understanding of what identifiers fall into the definition of personal data. The Government will therefore not be amending section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act.”
The University of London, which awarded President Tsai’s degree in 1984, refuses to identify the thesis examiners upon which it based its degree award or explain what type of examination was administered. Further, the UL advanced and then withdrew a false claim Tsai’s thesis had been submitted to the Senate House Library and subsequently lost by librarians. The ongoing controversy is responsible for a criminal defamation prosecution in Taiwan, a half-dozen Decision Notices by the Information Commissioner, and thus far four Tribunal cases involving use of the Freedom of Information Act to resolve questions on the validity of Tsai’s degree award.
President Tsai started the three-year long controversy when she submitted her PhD thesis to the library of the London School of Economics and Political Science in June 2019, thirty-five years late. The LSE, where Tsai attended school, has not been able to offer any explanation for the tardy thesis and first said it did not have records of her thesis examination.
Kevin Haynes, the self-described “Head of Legal Team” at the LSE next provided names of examiners to the ROC Ministry of Justice to prosecute Taiwan talk show host Dennis Peng for criminal defamation against Tsai. This was followed by a statement from Rachael Maguire, Hayne’s subordinate, that Haynes’ information may have been erroneous based on a “hurried view” of Tsai’s student record.
Following a Tribunal ruling against the LSE ordering the school to reply to a FOI request about the examination, Louise Nadal, the LSE Board Secretary declared the LSE’s records are likely inaccurate and that the school did not know who approved the thesis back in 1983 when it was purportedly examined. The LSE was not able to issue PhD degrees back then so President Tsai was awarded a University of London degre on the strength of an oral viva examination about the thesis entitled Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Actions.
Two Upper Tribunal Decisions have been issued to different litigants closing off the FOIA as an avenue to achieve transparency for UL’s degree awarding power in President Tsai’s case.
Upper Tribunal Judge Edward Jacobs ruled on 18 October 2022, “[Appellant’s] concerns and worries about the proper form of the President’s degree cannot be resolved within the FOIA scheme.”
Upper Tribunal Judge Mark West ruled on 20 October 2022, “A FOIA request is not a vehicle for discovering everything about President Tsai’s thesis.”
The Upper Tribunal applied personal data protections to examiners on the essential question of verification of qualification of President Tsai’s degree award, thus voiding and negating a public and transparent verification. With a tardy thesis, unknown examiners to the school Tsai attended, and contradictory statements on receipt of the thesis by the UL, a reasonable person is entitled to ask who approved the thesis and when. Under the present scheme of personal data protection, such a question by the public will not be answered, raising a spectre of academic fraud.
Examiners are the gatekeepers of a university’s award of degrees. Examiners have a unique and critical duty in the educational process and have a front-facing responsibility and duty to protect the integrity of a degree award. It is good and prudent public policy for advanced educational degrees to be awarded in a fully transparent manner, naming the examiners who approved the award. The importance of public confidence in the intergrity of degree awards overrides any inconvenience or personal objection of either students or examiners.
The problem of verification of qualification of a PhD degree is not one limited to President Tsai’s case, it is one of a structural nature, capable of being repeated. The practice in the United Kingdom on identification of examiners is varied, Oxford University, for example, names examiners while the University of London does not identify examiners.
Thus far the Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport has declined to amend the Data Protection Act to close the personal data loophole on examiners. Now the Cabinet Office has refused to amend the Freedom of Information Act to correct the gap in public disclosure of examination information leaving the public left to wonder who approved President Tsai’s thesis.
President Tsai keeps the thesis controversy alive by her continued refusal to release her oral examination viva report and ongoing efforts to imprison her most vocal critic. Dennis Peng, who is in self-exile in California, has avoided extradiction to Taiwan because President Tsai’s exiled Chinese government lacks sovereignty and thus an extradiction treaty with the United States. The campaign against Peng has recently ramped up with a refusal to renew his ROC passport in an apparent bid to obtain his deportation to Taiwan where he has been ordered arrested.
Richardson Reports 
Could it be called “The strategic ambiguity”?
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