Guidance and policies on Her Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO)

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.028231

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please provide any internal guidance or policies or understandings your force has on the access and use of:

1. Her Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO) Data Verification Application (DVA) / Data Validation Application (DVA)
2. Her Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO) Data Stop File (DSF)
3. The HMPO flagging service sometimes referred to as HM Passport Office 'watch list', or 'watchlist', or 'stop list', or 'browse', or 'stop file'.

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)(b) – Law Enforcement
Section 40(2)(a)(b)&3(a)(i) – Personal Information

Reason for decision

Section 31 Exemption has been utilised because some of the information requested contains capability and business processes and any disclosure would have an adverse effect on law enforcement by undermining the prevention and detection of crime and prejudice the force’s ability to apprehend offenders.

Section 40 Exemption has also been applied because names and professional email addresses of individuals have been redacted (indicated by xxxxx). The release and publication of these details of senior members of staff would provide persons intent on disrupting the work of the MPS and the Home Office with information that would assist them to do so. In this regard, a person with this intent would be likely to use this information to make inappropriate contact with senior members of staff or send them vast amounts of unsolicited correspondence. This would impede upon the resources of these senior members of staff and cause disruption to the work of the MPS and the Home Office.

This intrusion would be unexpected, unfair and distressing to the data subject(s). In this regard, the disclosure of this personal data would be a disproportionate interference with the rights to privacy of the data subject(s).

A Freedom of Information Act request is not a private transaction. Both the request itself, and any information disclosed, are considered suitable for open publication. This is because, under the Act, any information disclosed is released into the wider public domain via the MPS Publication Scheme and is then effectively available to the world at large and the MPS has no control over how that information is utilised.

Section 31(1)(a)(b) – Law Enforcement - The MPS has a clear responsibility to prevent and detect crime and disorder and, although there is a call for openness and transparency, this must be balanced against any harm in disclosure.

Modern day policing is intelligence led and this is particularly pertinent with regard to law enforcement. The public expect police forces to use all powers and tactics available to them to prevent and detect crime or disorder and maintain public safety.

In order to counter criminal and terrorist behaviour, it is vital that the police have the ability to work together with other agencies, including government bodies and where necessary covertly, to obtain intelligence within current legislative frameworks to assist in the investigative process ensuring the successful arrest and prosecution of offenders who commit or plan to commit criminal offences. To achieve this goal, it is vitally important that information sharing takes place between police forces and other government bodies within the United Kingdom.

It is vital that the MPS maintains a close working relationship with government bodies to safeguard national security and we believe that, in addition to impacting negatively upon law enforcement, releasing the information requested could cause harm to that relationship by diminishing the trust and confidence that has been built up in the exchange of information in the process of safeguarding national security.

As stated above, FOIA is considered to be a release to the world because, once information is published, the public authority in this case the MPS, has no control over what use is made of that information and, whilst not questioning the motives of any applicant, it could be of use to those who seek to cause harm and undermine national security and the prevention and detection of crime and this cannot be in the public interest.

Given the sensitivity of the processes involved in the monitoring of serious offenders and the fact that the information requested would disclose some law enforcement capabilities, the MPS believes that disclosure of the information requested would undermine the prevention and detection of crime and prejudice its ability to apprehend offenders. This would compromise the effective delivery of operational law enforcement, which cannot be in the public interest.

The public interest is defined not as what the public might find interesting but there must be some tangible benefit to the public in the disclosure of all of the information requested and, after weighing up the harm and competing interests I have determined that providing the information requested would not be in the public interest.

The MPS is responsible for enforcing the law, preventing and detecting crime and protecting the communities we serve and we will not release any information which discloses business processes if in so doing, law enforcement would be undermined.

As stated previously, release of the information requested could damage the trust and confidence in this specific area that has been built up in the exchange of information with other government bodies and the MPS therefore considers that the benefit that would result from the information being disclosed does not outweigh the harm arising from disclosure.

Section 40(2)(a)(b) and (3)(a)(i) Personal Information - 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 3(a), 3(b) and 4(c) 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 names and contact details of senior members of both the MPS and the Home Office must be withheld as release of this data constitutes Personal Data which 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

Please find attached copy of the Memorandum of Understanding between the MPS and the Home Office. Please note that, as indicated above, this document has been redacted (i.e., some law enforcement information has been removed together with names and email contacts of senior officers of the MPS and the Home Office).

DUTY TO ADVISE & ASSIST
Under Section 16 of the Act, there is a duty to advise and assist applicants in making requests for information and I am pleased to advise that some of the guidance requested on ‘withdrawing passport applications’ is already available in the public domain via the Gov.uk website and I have provided a link below for your reference.

With reference to the watch list/stop list/browse, I have also included a link below to the College of Policing’s website with some details on the police’s interaction with the HMPO system, which is already available in the public domain.

Gov.UK website link:
Passport Office - Guidance Withdrawing passport applications

College of Policing Website:
Travelling abroad | College of Policing

If any of the above links are broken upon receipt of this correspondence, please copy and paste them into your web browser.