Domestic Abuse throughout the UEFA European Football Championship from 2019 to 2021

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.21.022342

I note you seek access to the following information:

I'm writing to request data on the number of incidents (as well as number of offences) of domestic abuse that were reported to your force across all 32 London Boroughs during the period of the UEFA Euro 2020 (June 11-July 11).

As part of this request, I would like to be supplied with the number of reports received between:

(i) 12 May - 11 June 2021;
(ii) 11 June - 11 July 2020;
(iii) 11 June - 11 July 2019

I would also like to receive a breakdown of the number of domestic abuse reports received from each month from 2019 onwards.

Decision

Having located and considered the relevant information. I have today decided to disclose some of the requested information. Some information has been withheld as it is exempt from disclosure and therefore this response serves as a Partial Refusal Notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act), by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 40 – Personal Information

Reason for decision

When a request is made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act), a public authority must inform you, when permitted, whether the information requested is held. It must then communicate that information to you. If a public authority decides that it is cannot comply with all or part of a request, it must cite the appropriate section or exemption of the Act and provide you with a suitable explanation. It is important to note that 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.

I have considered the information:

The number of incidents and offences of domestic abuse that were reported to MPS across all 32 London Boroughs, broken down by borough during the period of

• 12 May - 11 June 2021;
• 11 June - 11 July 2020;
• 11 June - 11 July 2019 and
• Each month from 2019 onwards.

The above requests for information is exempt under Section 40(2)(3) - Personal information of the FOIA.

If the MPS disclosed the information requested at borough level, it would be possible for an individual to be identified due to the relatively low number of crime records associated with a borough, as specified within the scope of your request. It would be possible to use the specifics of this data to narrow down individuals. To disclose information which could cause harm to individuals cannot be allowed.

The need to prevent this has invoked a section 40 exemption being applied to the request, as any information that identifies an individual is 'personal information', as defined under the data protection act 1998.

Section 40(2)(3)&(4) – Personal Information - The Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption for Personal Data and this is known as the section 40 exemption.

The information sought under your Freedom of Information request includes the following which we consider to be Personal Data:

It would be possible for an individual to be identified, if the MPS disclosed the information requested at borough level. To disclose information which could cause harm to individuals cannot be allowed.

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.

Disclosure

I have disclosed the following information.

The number of incidents and offences of domestic abuse that were reported to MPS across all 32 London Boroughs during the period of:

• 12 May - 11 June 2021;
• 11 June - 11 July 2020;
• 11 June - 11 July 2019 and
• Each month from 2019 onwards.

IMPORTANT:• Please ensure that the note section within the spreadsheet is read in conjunction with the data in this report to ensure that it is interpreted correctly.