The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has started refusing freedom of information (FOI) requests submitted via website Right To Know, citing safety and privacy concerns for its staff.

The dispute appears to centre around the fact all FOI requests made via Right To Know - a website dedicated to improving access to government information - and the responses by relevant authorities are automatically made public.

In a statement, the ATO provided a list of concerns related to what it said were "systemic issues around the management of the site".

"We are particularly concerned with the names of staff processing the FOI request being published on the website," an ATO spokesperson said.

"Publishing all procedural material about FOI requests is not acceptable, nor is having no contact number, address or ability to respond promptly to email requests."

However, the OpenAustralia Foundation - the charity that runs Right To Know - said it has a clear policy on how it deals with requests from people and government agencies that want them to remove content.

OpenAustralia's Henare Degan said it does receive such requests from time to time, including from the ATO.

"In total, the ATO has sent us five takedown requests. We give every request serious consideration and have responded to each within a day," Mr Degan said.

"We agreed with four requests and promptly acted on them to remove the material. One of the most recent requests did not meet our takedown policy so we have not taken it down."

Mr Degan said OpenAustralia had previously been asked to redact the names of Tax Office staff where the ATO believed publication would put its staff at risk.

"We responded within an hour and agreed to take down the material, giving the ATO time to supply correctly redacted documents a few days later," he said.

FOI guidelines approve use of Right To Know

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the government body charged with overseeing FOI, explicitly states in its guidelines that using a public website such as Right To Know is a valid way to make an FOI request.

The office said it was aware of the dispute and was in the process of making enquiries.

The ATO has been accepting FOI requests made by members of the public through Right To Know since it launched in 2012, so OpenAustralia said it came as a shock when the Tax Office suddenly started refusing all requests made via the service this month.

"Up to now we've had a good working relationship with the ATO. We're genuinely baffled by the reasoning they use to justify their refusal to process requests via Right To Know," Mr Degan said.

The ATO refused to identify the specific content it had concerns about, reiterating that it believes there are systemic issues and claiming the "decision is not based on one isolated matter".

However, the ABC understands the blanket refusals began following OpenAustralia's refusal to take down specific content at the request of the ATO which related to a Right To Know user requesting an internal review of the ATO's decision on their request.

Requesting an internal review is a step any FOI applicant is entitled to take if they are dissatisfied with the decision they have received.

Under Australia's FOI legislation, anyone is entitled to request access to information held by public authorities such as the ATO but the system can be difficult to navigate successfully.

So long as a request meets certain requirements government bodies must, within a specified timeframe, respond to that request and either provide the requested information or a valid legal reason why the request is being refused.

The Right To Know website aims to make the FOI system easier for everyone to access. The site has helped members of the public file nearly 2,000 FOI requests since it launched in November 2012. All those requests, and the responses of the relevant authorities, are archived and available for anyone to view.