Use of technology for police to find burglars/robbers

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.024883

I note you seek access to the following information:

Hello just wanted to find out I'm terms of burglaries and robberies what has changed in the way police find those that break into peoples house, 10 years ago when my house was broken into till this day the person wasn't found so a lot of people don't even feel like reporting it because even when we called police the person wasn't floor because they were wearing gloves so what has changed in terms of the technology police use to find burglars even if they do use gloves or other equipments?

Please do let me know and if this isn't the right place to ask please do direct me to the right place because if 10 years on nothing has changed and police still can't catch burglars when they wear gloves then that is an issue that needs to be worked on and focussed on.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information.

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

The information requested is not held by the MPS in a recorded form. Recorded information includes printed documents, computer files, letters, emails, photographs, and sound or video recordings etc. Information is ‘held’ by the public authority if it is retained for the purposes of the public authority’s business.
There’s no central database/records that can be searched for information showing a comparison with changes in forensic technology over the last 10 years.

Although there would have been technological advancement in the last 10 years, to go into all the details of where technology is used in the investigation of crime would be an essay on the Police Investigation of these offences including intelligence systems, CCTV, facial recognition, phone records etc. This would mean that we would have to create new information. Public authorities are not required to create new information in order to comply with a request for information under the Act. They only need to consider information already in existence at the time a request is received.

"Information is defined in section 84 of the Act as 'information recorded in any form'. The Act therefore only extends to requests for recorded information. It does not require public authorities to answer questions generally; only if they already hold the answers in recorded form. The Act does not extend to requests for information about policies or their implementation, or the merits or demerits of any proposal or action - unless, of course, the answer to any such request is already held in recorded form." (Day vs ICO & DWP – EA/2006/0069 Final Decision)

DUTY TO ADVISE AND ASSIST

Under Section 16 of the Act, there is a duty to advise and assist applicants.

An aspect of tools available to policing today that was not available 10 years ago is the sensitivity of DNA testing. Introduced in 2014 DNA17 is a much more sensitive test. So secondary transfer of DNA can be picked up, in the case of a suspect wearing gloves perhaps when they put the gloves on or while they are wearing them they touch their face, and then after that touch something at a scene we can potentially find their DNA by sampling that area.

Further details on CPS - DNA-17 Profiling and its impact can be found in the public domain.