T 71 licensing agreement - Schedule 1 & 2 of 2007 License Agreement

Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and further to the partial disclosure of the Licence Agreement dated 15 February 2007 between The National Archives and The Generations Network Inc provided to me under references CAS-291989-G6S4N0 and CAS-322451-M6D0Q2, I write to request two schedules of that Agreement which were not included in either disclosure and whose absence has never been explained.

The Agreement as disclosed runs to page 16 and includes Schedule 3 and Schedule 2 Supplement A. Pages 14 and 15 — which on the document’s internal structure correspond to Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 — were not provided in either disclosure. No redaction label was applied to their absence. No explanation was given. They were not acknowledged as withheld. They were simply omitted.

Schedule 1 is referenced by name in the disclosed text of the Agreement. Clause 1.1 defines the Acknowledgement as a statement in the form set out in Schedule 1. Clause 5.1.3 required the Publisher to display that Acknowledgement on its website no less prominently than any third party or the Publisher’s own copyright acknowledgement. Schedule 1 was therefore contractually required to be publicly displayed on Ancestry.co.uk from the date of the Agreement’s operation. It is by its nature a public document. It was never confidential. It cannot be withheld under any exemption.

Schedule 2 is the original Licensed Material schedule, predating Schedule 2 Supplement A dated 9 May 2007. It defines the scope of the original licensed material before the Supplement A addition. Its disclosure is essential to understanding the full scope of the commercial arrangement from its inception.

The internal review decision of 20 May 2026 under reference CAS-322451-M6D0Q2 acknowledged that The National Archives' previous application of section 43(2) to the 2007 Licensing Agreement was wrong in significant proportion — directly contradicting the assertion made in The National Archives' response of 7 January 2026 that only a small amount of information was being withheld. That admission of unlawful withholding applies with particular force to Schedule 1, which was never confidential, and to Schedule 2, which defines the original scope of a commercial arrangement governing Crown records of crimes against humanity.

I request Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 of the Licence Agreement dated 15 February 2007 in full and without redaction, in electronic form, within the statutory 20 working days.

Outcome

Information provided.

Response

I can confirm that The National Archives holds information relevant to your request, and we are pleased to be able to provide this information to you.

Please note that the previous decision to withhold information from the 2007 Licensing Agreement was made in consultation with the third party commercial provider (as directed by the ICO’s guidance on section 43(2)), which in this instance was Ancestry, and the determination to exempt information was made upon the basis of advice provided at that time by Ancestry concerning prejudice to their commercial interests.

We do not consider this to have been an unlawful decision, as the lower threshold of the prejudice test was considered to be met for the withheld information (meaning the disclosure of information would have a less than 50% chance of causing prejudice, although the risk was still considered to be substantial). Furthermore, the subsequent Public Interest Test arrived at a reasonable determination with the advice we had available at the time, in determining that the balance of the test lay in favour of non-disclosure. This was a lawful decision made in line with the requirements of the FOI Act.

The decision to voluntarily release further information after additional consultation with Ancestry is a legitimate reconsideration of the original decision, and not unlawful conduct in the processing of the FOI request. A reconsideration of the original decision is the purpose behind the internal review process, and a public authority is allowed to change aspects of its original decision; particularly, in terms of considering the application of section 43(2), in the light of fresh advice from our commercial partners.

Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 are missing from the scanned copy of the 2007 agreement; they have not been omitted or unlawfully withheld. The National Archives does not hold a hard copy of the agreement, it would have been terminated when the 2017 Framework came into effect, which we assume is why it has not been retained.

Therefore, we cannot supply the exact pages, however, our standard Schedule 1 wording for contracts is available upon request and can be obtained by emailing RMDclosedrecordsrequests@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Schedule 2, as per the definition in the agreement, would have contained a list of the ‘Licensed Material’ named on the first page of the contract, i.e. T71/553-565. It would have taken a similar format to Schedule 2 (Supplement A), which is on the last page of the 2007 Agreement previously supplied, and details the additional licensed material supplied.

Further note: Since this request was resolved a hard copy of the agreement has been located, and a copy of Schedules 1 and 2 can be requested by emailing RMDclosedrecordsrequests@nationalarchives.gov.uk