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UK University hid climate data

29 January 2010 04:06 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ziya Agazade â€“ APA. The university at the center of a climate change dispute over stolen e-mails broke freedom of information laws by refusing to handle public requests for climate data, Britain’s data-protection watchdog said Thursday, APA reports citing â€œAssociated Pressâ€.

A cache of e-mail exchanges between leading climate scientists that were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s climate research unit and recently made public show that the institution ignored at least one request from the public for data, the Information Commissioner’s Office said.

The watchdog said it received complaints about the university from David Holland, a retired engineer, in 2007 to 2008, but it has only recently come to light that his requests for data were ignored.

"The e-mails which are now public reveal that Mr. Holland’s requests under the Freedom of Information Act were not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation," it said in a statement.

The thousands of leaked e-mails â€” made public on the Internet just before the U.N. summit on global warming in Copenhagen in December â€” sparked an international debate over whether scientists had exaggerated the case for man-made climate change.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said it could not prosecute the university for its breaches because it was too late to do so â€” it said the law requires action within six months of the offense taking place.

Edward Acton, the university’s vice chancellor, denied that it hid data from the public and said there may have been a "misunderstanding." He told the BBC on Thursday that most raw data at the climate research center have long been publicly available.