Theft of motor vehicles reported to the MPS in 2022

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.027840

I note you seek access to the following information:

1) Total number of reports for theft of motor vehicle to the Met Police in 2022

2) A breakdown based on how many theft of motor vehicles reported per borough within the Met Police in 2022

3) Total number of vehicles recovered as a result of the above reported crimes in 2022

4) Total number of vehicles recovered per borough within the Met Police from the above figure.

5) The average time between the above mentioned crimes being reported to the Met Police and the crime being closed after all lines of enquiry being completed for vehicles not recovered

6) A breakdown of the above average time per borough within the Met Police

REQUEST 2:
Between 01/01/2022 and 31/12/2022 how many crimes were recorded for Theft of Motor Vehicle.

Of those numbers, please disclose the breakdown for each borough the MPS has jurisdiction.

Please also, disclose of those crime numbers, how many vehicles were recovered along with a breakdown of the borough it was assigned to.

Please also disclose, regarding the crimes logged for theft of motor vehicle, the time between the crime being reported to you, and the time the crime was closed I.e 20 minutes. Again, with the breakdown for each borough.

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 specific vehicle theft information containing crime numbers and, per borough location, 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.

Disclosure

The harm of disclosure is reduced by redacting the low numbers within the data. Please see attached a spreadsheet pursuant to your request for information.

Table titled - The number of Theft of vehicle recorded for the period 01/01/2022 - 31/12/2022. Data broken down by Borough and Vehicle status.

• I have redacted the following columns due to low numbers of specific vehicle theft information.

• Obtained by deception
• Partially recovered
• Vehicle recovered damaged and minus property

Table titled - The number of Theft of vehicle recorded for the period 01/01/2022 - 31/12/2022. The number of days between recorded date and close date of the investigation.

This table has been removed, as all 35217 individual crimes would contain personal details. This could not be redacted to reduce harm of disclosure.