Incidents relating to ‘Exposure’ under Section 66 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 from April 2019 to March 2021
Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.022724
I note you seek access to the following information:
Please could you provide, under the Freedom of Information Act, the following statistics relating to the offence of ‘Exposure’ as maintained under Section 66 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003:
- A case level extraction (one row per crime) of crimes classified under HOCR Code 88/9 (Exposure) over a two-year period from April 2019 to March 2021
- As part of this extraction, we would like to obtain data on the following:
o Date of the crime
o Outcome of the crime
o Perpetrator characteristics, including age, gender, and ethnicity
Decision
I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information. Some data has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) by virtue of the following exemptions:
Section 40(2)(3)&(4) – Personal Information
Reason for decision
Before I explain the reasons for the decisions I have made in relation to your request, I thought that it would be helpful if I outline the parameters set out by the Act within which a request for information can be answered. The Act creates a statutory right of access to information held by public authorities. A public authority in receipt of a request must, if permitted, confirm if the requested information is held by that public authority and, if so, then communicate that information to the applicant.
The right of access to information is not without exception and is subject to a number of exemptions which are designed to enable public authorities to withhold information that is not suitable for release. Importantly, the Act is designed to place information into the public domain, that is, once access to information is granted to one person under the Act, it is then considered public information and must be communicated to any individual should a request be received.
Details of an investigation could cause an individual to be identified and is therefore exempted in this case.
Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 confirms that information which relates to an identified or identifiable living individual is Personal Data.
The Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption for Personal Data and this is known as the section 40 exemption.
Some of the information sought under your Freedom of Information request includes the following which we consider to be Personal Data
• Low numbers of offences, that could, if disclosed, identify an individual.
Where the request is seeking access to third party personal data the section 40(2) exemption may be engaged.
In order to apply the Section 40(2) exemption the disclosure of the requested information must satisfy either the first, second or third conditions as defined by subsections 3A, 3B and 4A of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (as amended by
Section 58 of the Data Protection Act 2018).
The first condition ensures that the exemption would apply in circumstances where the disclosure of the information would breach any of the Data Protection Act 2018 principles.
There are six Data Protection principles set out in the 2018 act and these can be found at section 34.
In this instance I have decided that the disclosure of the Personal Data would be incompatible with the first Data Protection principle which states that the processing (in this case the disclosure) of the data must be both lawful and fair.
When considering identifiability it should be assumed that the MPS are not looking just at the means reasonably likely to be used by the ordinary person in the street, but also the means that are likely to be used by a determined person with a particular reason to want to identify individuals.
Identified’ does not necessarily mean ‘named’. It can be enough to be able to establish a reliable connection between particular information and a known individual.’
Disclosure
The harm of disclosure is reduced by redacting the low numbers of offences. The Grand Totals remain.
Table 1: Count of Exposure Offences by Outcome, recorded between 01/01/2019 and 31/03/2021.
• The cells highlighted grey have had data redacted due to low numbers of offences, possibly leading to individuals being identified.
Table 2: Persons proceeded Against for Exposure Offences, by Proceedings Type and Age, recorded between 01/01/2019 and 31/03/2021.
• The cells highlighted grey have had data redacted due to low numbers of offences, possibly leading to individuals being identified.
Table 3: Persons proceeded Against for Exposure Offences, by Proceedings Type and Sex, recorded between 01/01/2019 and 31/03/2021.
• The cells highlighted grey have had data redacted due to low numbers of offences, possibly leading to individuals being identified.
Table 4: Persons proceeded Against for Exposure Offences, by Proceedings Type and Ethnic Appearance, recorded between 01/01/2019 and 31/03/2021.
• The cells highlighted grey have had data redacted due to low numbers of offences, possibly leading to individuals being identified.
Table 5: Persons proceeded Against for Exposure Offences, by Proceedings Type and Self-Classified Ethnicity, recorded between 01/01/2019 and 31/03/2021.
• The cells highlighted grey have had data redacted due to low numbers of offences, possibly leading to individuals being identified.
Please find below a spreadsheet, pursuant to your request for information.