Stolen luxury watches from September 2022 to February 2023

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.028938

I note you seek access to the following information:

I'm writing to request the most up to date figures relating to thefts/robberies of luxury watches in London please.

The latest figures I have found for 2022 were reported last September and included the boroughs where the crimes took place, this would be very useful information please.

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(2)(3) - 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. This is best demonstrated by the FOI disclosures on the Disclosure Log section of the MPS website.

FOI - Published Items.

Section 40(2)&(3) - 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:
• Thefts / robberies of luxury watches to include London Boroughs.

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.

I have considered your request for information regarding:

• Thefts / robberies of luxury watches to include London Boroughs.

You have requested recorded data on the number of luxury watches stolen, broken down by London Boroughs within a short date period. This information is not suitable for public consumption. Should the MPS publish the requested data as specified within the scope of your request showing low numbers of records, it would be at such a level that would make the identification of individuals (perpetrators/victims) extremely possible. To produce and publish this information would not be lawful, fair or in line with our processing commitments. Thus, disclosure of the information requested in a specific venue is exempt in accordance with Section 40(2)(3A)(a) of the Act – Personal Information.

When looking at disclosing the requested information, I have considered various pieces of guidance, including the ICO’s guidance which examines a number of issues relating to the disclosure of crime data.

I have, when looking at the data, considered the following, broadly equivalent factors when making my decision:

• The time periods
• Sensitivity of the crimes
• The availability of other sources of information
• The effect on victims/perpetrators.

It is often believed that such information, is unlikely to allow anyone to actually identify those and ‘there would be no way of knowing who these people were unless you were a witness to the crime’ for example. However, when considering identifiability, we have to assume that we 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 (or a ‘motivated intruder’) with a particular reason to want to identify individuals. Examples would include investigative journalists, estranged partners, stalkers, to name but a few.

If this level of data was to be disclosed, it could be pieced together with information already known by individuals or already in the public domain in order to identify the individuals involved. For example, individuals may be partially aware of certain details of an alleged crime through word of mouth, witnessing an incident or police presence.

Therefore, where the request is seeking information that would essentially allow access to third party personal data (such as in this case) the Section 40(2) exemption may be engaged.

Please Note:
Previous data (01/01/2021 to 20/09/2022) referred to in your request above, Borough data are not provided.

Link to access this information via the Disclosure Log section of the MPS website.

Disclosure

I have disclosed the following information.

Please find attached a spreadsheet which shows the make of the Luxury Watches, recorded stolen between the dates of 01/09/2022 and 28/02/2023.

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