Disability and homophobia hate crime from January to October 2022

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.026703

I note you seek access to the following information:

I would like a list of disability, transgender, and homophobia hate crime and incidents from 1 January 2022 until as late as possible including the following information:
date of the incident,
bias (homophobia, disability, transgender), borough or LAD.

If possible I would also like the offence group or subgroup (violence, public order, etc.).

Please do not aggregate the data into a count by day/month/year but a list with one line of data for each incident or crime.

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) - Personal Information

Reason for decision

Some data has been withheld by virtue of S.40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) governing Personal Information.

Section 40(2)&(3) - Personal Information - provides that any information to which a request for information relates, is exempt information if the first condition of Section 40(3A)(a) is satisfied. The first condition of Section 40(3A)(a) states that personal information is exempt if its disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles. If the disclosure of the requested personal data would not contravene the data protection principles, the disclosure must also not contravene Sections 3A(b) and 3B of the Act.

There are six principles that are set out in Article 5(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that dictate when the processing of personal data is lawful. The first principle requires that any processing of personal data must be lawful, fair and transparent. Under Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR, the disclosure of personal data is considered to be lawful if:

a. There is a legitimate interest in the disclosure of that personal data.
b. The disclosure of the personal data is necessary to meet that legitimate interest.
c. The disclosure would not cause unwarranted harm to the data subject.

Having considered your request for data to be presented on a line by line basis and for the information not to be aggregated, I have found, having considered the legitimate interest test, that:

a. The disclosure of this information in the format you have requested would not satisfy an identifiable legitimate interest. The MPS proactively publishes data on the homepage and therefore any further breakdown on a case by case basis would not be in the public interest. I also believe that the data provided here satisfies the public interest.

b. As there is no legitimate interest identified at point a I do not find there is a need for disclosure.

c. Furthermore, release of the information in the format you have requested would be likely to lead to identification and unwanted and unsolicited intrusion.

The provision to refuse access to information under Section 40(2)(a)(b) and (3A)(a) of the Act is both absolute and class based. When this exemption is claimed, it is accepted that harm would result from disclosure. There is accordingly no requirement to demonstrate what that harm may be in refusing access to information.

Disclosure

Please find below detacted data for your request above.