Data for Traffic Offence allegations from June 2022 to May 2023

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.030647

I note you seek access to the following information:

Data for Traffice Offence Allegations
Dates 01/06/2022 until today (26/05/2023).

The required data points:
Offence Date & Time
CCCJS Offence Description
Location
Disposal Completion

Gender and Age of individual concerned (as published under FOI/22/028011) is not required.

The required data was previously published under FOI/22/028011. Please note I only require the "Allegations" tab, and the Gender & Sex Columns are not required.

Excel Format similar to Excel released under 01/FOI/22/028011 would be fine.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) provides public access to information held by public authorities. The Act details certain requirements, one of which, is that public authorities have an obligation to confirm or deny, when permitted, whether the information requested is held. Further to this, public authorities have a duty to communicate this to the requester. The Act also lists a number of exemptions, meaning that requests can be refused if a public authority has a good reason why they cannot comply with the request. If any or all parts of a request are refused then a written refusal notice must be sent to the requester.

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 31(1)(a) - Law enforcement
Section 40(2)(3) - Personal data

Reason for decision

Searches successfully located information relevant to your request. I have attached an excel spreadsheet which outlines the year, month, offence description and the location of the offence. I will also supply the means of disposal, which has been aggregated in a separate table, in order to minimise the risk of personal data being released. However, I will not disclose the exact date, time or show which specific offence relates to the means of disposal.

Section 31(1)(a) - Law enforcement - There are a number of factors which effect the ability of the MPS to prevent and detect crime. One of which centres on public engagement and public trust. It could be argued that by providing you with the exact date, time, offence description, location and the outcome could lead to the identification of the individual who received the TOR or NIP, and the subsequent outcome of the incident. You may ask how this is possible, and to demonstrate this, I will provide four examples. For further context please note:

TOR stands for Traffic Offence Reports and NIP stands for Notice of Intended Prosecution.

Scenario 1 - NIP
If an individual driving or a passenger has witnessed an alleged offence happening, this may have been picked up on a dash cam. The AA’s website describes a dash cam as ‘a small camera mounted on the dashboard or windscreen of your car, facing the road. You can also have a rear dash cam too. It turns on when you start the engine and records your entire journey. Dash cam videos can be timestamped in a way that's tamper-proof, making them a great source of evidence for any kind of road incident.’ This is important, as a driver or passenger maybe aware of the time, date and the location of an alleged offence.

The one piece of data that they would not know is, the outcome of the allegation. By disclosing the exact date, time, offence description, location of the offence and the Disposal Completion, I could be inadvertently introducing and disclosing new information that would not be known by the individual, who has, with evidence contacted the MPS about the alleged offence. At a very basic level I would be confirming to that individual that their allegation has been logged and investigated, and then on a secondary level, I would be detailing the outcome of that allegation, which would not be publicly known.

Scenario 2 –NIP
Increasingly Ring doorbells are installed outside of people’s homes. This doorbell gives you access to a video feed of what’s happening outside your door and, with a subscription to the Ring Protect Plan, the doorbell will record events in real time. The ring doorbell is triggered by motion in front of the doorbell and will then store the footage. If an owner of the doorbell picks up an alleged office, and submits this as evidence, they would be aware of the exact time, date, offence description and location of the alleged offence. A combination of all of these pieces of information makes it possible to identify their report and if it was placed beside the outcome of that allegation. However, I believe that with the absence of the exact date, time and outcome placed side by side with the specific location, this massively reduces the risk of identifying the outcome that has been received by the individual.

I concede that the risk of identifying and individual’s outcome is more likely with entries with a small number of results. For example if we take ‘Using vehicle in designated play street’ you will note that there one entry in the attached spreadsheet, so if all the requested data of the Offence Date & Time, Offence Description, Location, Disposal Completion is supplied and this offence was picked up on a doorbell and the owner had submitted this, they would then have all the data needed to identify the result of this incident that they themselves have reported. With entries such as ‘Drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road / in a public place without due care and attention’, it would be much less likely that you could identify anyone because there are a considerable amount of entries, some of which are on the same street, so you would not necessarily know an allegation outcome, and so the risks are much lower, with these types of entries.

Scenario 3 - TOR
If an individual is being spoken to and is subsequently issued with a TOR on a busy road, this would cause a certain degree of attention, which may be noticeable to any passer-by and perhaps the cars behind or beside. By disclosing the exact date, time, offence description and location of the offence, I could then be confirming to those that witnessed the stop that a TOR was not only issued, but also the result of that offence, be it Paid Confirmed, Retraining Course Attended and Completed, Potential Prosecution or NFA’d . A passer-by may be aware that someone was spoken to but not necessarily that a TOR was issued, or the result after it had been issued. I would by providing all the requested data but I could also be introducing new data that is not in the public domain.

Scenario 4 – TOR
If a driver was accompanied by passengers, he or she could have been spoken to outside of the car or even within the car. There is a high likelihood that passengers may well be aware that a TOR was issued, but may not be aware of the result. If I now provide the exact date, time, offence description and location that the TOR was issued, a passenger could then conceivable work out the result, even if the driver had not communicated this to them.

These four examples present the risks in releasing all the requested data. It is important to note that if there is a perceived risk that an individual could be identified, no matter how small the risk could be, this would undoubtedly erode the public’s trust.

You have sought information regarding all Traffic Offence Allegations from June 2022 to May 2023. Via a public interest test I have presented two opposing arguments for and against releasing all the requested data. I have found that if I were to disclose all of the requested data, this would make public all the recorded offences that have occurred at a specific date and time, the specifics of that offence which include the specific location and the outcome. I have found that as a publically funded organisation, there is a public interest in what data the MPS’s holds.

Conversely, there is an argument that if the MPS were to disclose all the requested data, this could identify the offender’s outcome. There are far reaching issues that arise from this, in that there is an clear expectation that when indiviuals are issued with a NIP or a TOR, the outcome of the alleged offence should not be made public. So, to release any data that could identify an individuals offence outcome would erode public trust. Accordingly, I have not included the exact date or time and decided to supply the means of disposal in an aggregated form on the attached excel spreadsheet.

Section 40(2)(3) - Personal data - it is accepted that harm would result from disclosure. Section 40(3A)(a) states that public authorities will not disclose information which constitutes personal data and if the disclosure would contravene any of the Data Protection principles.

To disclose all the requested data would publicly reveal information about individuals which would contravene Data Protection principles. The Data Protection Act 2018 defines personal data as any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual. There are six data protection principles set out in section 34 of the DPA 2018 and under Article 5(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The first principle requires personal data to be processed in a ‘lawful and fair’ manner. The basis for determining what constitutes lawful and fair is outlined under section 35 of the DPA. Under section 35(2) it states:

• the data subject has given consent to the processing for that purpose, or
• the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for that purpose by a competent authority.

It is important to note that we do not have the consent of any of the data subjects to release their personal data and the release of the data will not be used for a law enforcement process.

Under Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR, the disclosure of personal data is considered to be lawful if:

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

You have requested information on Traffic Offence Allegations. By means of a legitimate interest test I have considered the release of the personal data, and I have found that:

• Disclosing the requested information would provide a factual answer to this request. The legitimate interest in transparency would be further satisfied through the release of this information.

• Disclosing all of the requested information could identify the outcome for the individual who was issued with the TOR or NIP. The MPS must consider how we process personal data and without their explicit consent, the sharing of their personal data would be harmful, and cause alarm and distress to the data subjects.

Disclosure

The find below spreadsheet that present the total number of all Traffic Offence Reports (TORs), all Camera – Notice of Intended Prosecutions (NIPs), and all Allegations