Offences of Revenge Porn from January 2019 to July 2022

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.027454

I note you seek access to the following information:

We are interested in mapping the outcomes for ‘revenge porn’ offences before and after the 2021 expansion of the disclosure of intimate images offences to include threats to disclose. Hence requesting a breakdown of outcome types for the period of 2019 to present.

Previous FOI request 22/026090
REQUEST 1:
Please provide data on how many 'revenge porn' crimes that were recorded in the calendar years 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 (to July)
Note: by 'revenge porn’, we mean sharing or threatening to share private sexual photographs or films without the consent of the person depicted and with intent to cause them distress, which is a criminal offence under section 33 of the 2015 Criminal Justice and Courts Act

REQUEST 2:
Please supply data on how many of the ‘revenge porn’ crimes recorded by the police in the calendar years 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 (to July) resulted in the following outcomes:
outcome type 1 (charged/summonsed)
outcome type 14 (Evidential difficulties: suspect not identified; victim does not support further action) outcome type 15 (Evidential difficulties: suspect identified; victim supports action) outcome type 16 (Evidential difficulties: suspect identified; victim does not support further action)

REQUEST 3:
For the period between June 2021 and July 2022, please provide data on how many recorded ‘revenge porn’ crimes specifically involved threats to share private sexual photographs or films as opposed to incidents in which these photographs or films had already been shared Note: The 2021 Domestic Abuse Act expanded section 33 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act to include threats to share private sexual photographs or films without consent of the person depicted and with intent to cause them distress

REQUEST 4:
For the period between June 2021 and July 2022, please provide data on how many of the recorded ‘revenge porn’ crimes specifically included threats to share private photographs or films resulted in outcome types 1, 14, 15 and 16

REQUEST 5:
Please supply data on the sex, ethnicity and age groups of victims of 'revenge porn’ crimes between Jan 2019 and July 2022. Please also supply this data specifically for those crimes involving ‘threats to share’ from June 2021 to July 2022.

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 offences in the report 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

After reviewing the previous disclosure I content to release a little more data in relation to Table titled - Count of 'Revenge Porn' Outcomes Recorded From 01/01/2019 to 31/07/2022. Some redaction remains of low numbers as explained below.

The harm of disclosure is reduced by redacting the low numbers of offences within the report. Please see attached file titled 22026090 Final reportv3, pursuant to your request for information.

Table titled - Count of 'Revenge Porn' Outcomes Recorded From 01/01/2019 to 31/07/2022

• A breakdown of offences reported by years 2021 and 2022 Charged/Summonsed and Evidential difficulties victim based has been redacted due to low numbers and the possibility of people being identified within the data including self-identifying. The grand totals for each Outcome and yearly totals remain.

Table titled - Count of 'Revenge Porn' Victims Broken Down by Victim Age Recorded From 01/01/2019 to 31/07/2022

• Age 0-9 has been combined with age 10 to 19 due to low numbers and the possibility of people being identified within the data including self-identifying.