In the Netherlands (probably more similar laws compared to the UK due to EU influence) you can make a request for all written communications regarding a specific decision by a government agency. That would include the emails about it.

I think it's rather sleazy of the UK government to implement a 90 day removal procedure, knowing that they can delay answering a request for longer than that. Totally not in the spirit of the FOI laws.

> At least according to FOI laws I'm vaguely familiar with (in Australia), an FOI request can only be made for an item of information that is known to exist. People can't go on "fishing expeditions" for, say, all communications between nominated people over a nominated period of time.

Interestingly I don't think this is 100% true - under (for example) the federal FOI Act I think a request framed as asking for "email sent on government systems between Alice and Bob in the last six months" would be facially valid, if Alice and Bob were civil servants (although of course exemptions may apply to individual emails).

Here's an (Australian) FOI request that is similar in spirit to your example:

https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/philip_gaetjens_the_l...

which asks for "any emails contained in all of Philip Gaetjens’ outlook items (including deleted items) that contain any of the following terms (in the body of an email and/or in the addressee fields of an email): “liberal.org.au” or “ipa.org.au”", and the department deemed that a valid request. (Philip Gaetjens is a senior civil servant, the Liberals are a political party and the IPA is a right-leaning think tank; it's reasonable to infer that the fishing here is for evidence of a link between the civil service and a particular side of politics.)

Thanks for expanding on that (I avoided digging into it for brevity and as I was time-constrained).

That aligns with my understanding, that there must be an explicit piece of information you’re looking for or occurrence you’re looking for evidence of, rather than just seeking to dragnet-fish all correspondence to see what’s there.

Anyway, it makes sense to me that messenger app conversations are considered ephemeral like phonecalls and can just naturally disappear, whereas more formal material like meeting minutes, official written correspondence, contracts and public service documents are kept on record and made subject to FOI.

It's really not the same to equate using a medium that is standard and normally does not record and using a non-standard medium and also explicitly choosing to not log conversations. The explicit choice can mean a world of difference.

That doesn’t seem reasonable to me. People will communicate via the most expedient means available. The telephone wasn’t “standard” until suddenly it was. Signal’s use is widespread, and people choose it because it has been designed to be very secure and private. The auto-deletion of messages is a key part of that security and privacy. It seems reasonable that politicians are entitled to use secure and private online communications, just as all other citizens are, and just as they always have via phone and spoken conversation.

UK FOI isn't constrained by that. The responding party use specific exemptions if something doesn't exist, so you can effectively do fishing expeditions as long as the request isn't excessively burdensome, etc.