Vaccine misinformation published on Government of Jersey website (FOI)

​​​Request

A

Please confirm who decides what constitutes vaccine misinformation as published on the Government of Jersey website.

Please provide the names of individuals at the Public Health Department, what department they represent, what qualifications they have that enables them to decide what constitutes misinformation. 

B

What sources of information they have studied to make their decisions?

​Response

A and B

The Vaccine misinformation web page is understood to have been published in August 2021 following concerns of misinformation that was being spread, mainly through social media channels, and that such potential misinformation may affect our local vaccination uptake. 

The web page was published to support the freedom of individuals to interpret narratives and to provide knowledge that such misinformation exists.  It advises where to find reliable sources of information, who people can call for accurate vaccine information and why the Government of Jersey were recommending protection by getting vaccinated. A link to the page in question is provided below: 

Vaccine misinformation (gov.je)​

​It is understood that the misinformation page was published following peer reviews by persons working within the Vaccination Programme, the Communications Team and, at that time, the Deputy Medical Officer of Health.  Misinformation was reviewed from numerous sources, both internationally and from the UK and from Public Health England at that time. 

In addition to the links included on the above Vaccine misinformation web page, although a number of links are no longer available, it is believed that the following web pages may well have also been used to assess misinformation activity: 

Public Health England (gov.uk)​

Statistics at PHE - Public Health England (gov.uk) 

Countering misinformation | Local Government Association (local.gov.uk)

Government targets false vaccine information on social media (gov.uk)​

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation (parliament.uk)

Vaccination: “fake news” on social media may be harming UK uptake, report warns | The BMJ (bmj.com)

Immunizing the public against misinformation (who.int)​

The spread of true and false news online | Science (science.org)

Social media giants agree package of measures with UK Government to tackle vaccine disinformation (gov.uk)

The Jersey Vaccination Programme has since moved to sit under Public Health, with the Director of Public Health now being the responsible position for signing off any new and updated web page information. 

Further details as to the names and qualifications of persons within Public Health have been withheld under Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Article applied 

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.​