Anti-Semitic Violent Crime Offences recorded in 2022
Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.028081
I note you seek access to the following information:
I am looking for more detailed information regarding anti-Semitic hate crimes not available on the MPS Crime Dashboard.
Specifically, I am interested in knowing details about anti-semitic assaults that took place in Greater London between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2022.
The particular details I am interested in are the date of the assault, the location of the assault (Borough), the Gender of Victim, Age of Victim, Gender of Perpetrator, Age of Perpetrator, Ethnicity of Perpetrator, and Description of the assault.
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).
Low level data you have requested is exempt by virtue of the following exemption;
• Section 31(1)(a) (Law Enforcement)
• Section 40(2)(3A)(a) - (Personal Information)
Reason for decision
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 Freedom of Information, any information disclosed is released into the wider public domain, effectively to the world and not just to one individual. Recently the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was been introduced across the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA).
In respect of the United Kingdom, GDPR was enshrined in UK law through the Data Protection Act 2018. The MPS, like all UK public authorities are obliged to comply with the Data Protection Act 2018 and this includes the protection of personal data. Information captured by your request, can fairly be considered "personal data" and sensitive, with a clear identifiable link.
In most cases, personal data is exempt from disclosure under the remit of the Freedom of Information Act. Where an individual is requesting third party personal data the MPS must ensure that any action taken adheres to the principles of GDPR/ the Data Protection Act 2018.
To clarify, the Freedom of Information Act only allows disclosure of personal data if that disclosure would be compliant with that law. The disclosure of the information you have requested must be carefully managed in order to ensure that there is no prejudice to any person in any possible way, however remote.
The MPS carefully ensure it routinely publishes crime data at a level which is less likely to identify individuals using the following link;
Specifically, the section for Hate Crime data can be found within the Crime Data Dashboard
Section 40(2)(3A)(a) - 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 the Personal Data of the individuals that could be identified through the release of this information/ Personal information requested within this FOIA request includes:
• Disclosure of low level identifiable personal data
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 3(A), 3(B) and 4(A) 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 specified within Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).
In this instance we have decided that the disclosure of the Personal Data would be incompatible with the first Data Protection principle which requires that personal data shall be: ‘processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’);
Under the Data Protection Act 2018, the disclosure of personal data is considered to be lawful if:
a. There is a legitimate interest in the disclosure of that personal data.
b. The disclosure of the personal data is necessary to meet that legitimate interest.
c. The disclosure would not cause unwarranted harm to the data subject.
Here, we need to balance the rights and freedoms of the individuals involved with any legitimate public interest in disclosure. Having considered the release of the identified personal data, the MPS has found, having considered the legitimate interest test, that, whilst there is not a public interest in disclosure of the personal information and the information requested is uniquely personal to individuals.
The data subjects in the circumstances of your request would have a legitimate expectation that this type of personal data would not be used for non-policing purposes (i.e. FOIA requests – disclosures for which are put up publicly on the MPS website Publication Scheme).
Disclosure in the circumstances of your request would be unlawful and would therefore contravene the first data protection principle. I have therefore applied the exemption provided under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act to this information as the first condition, defined in subsection 3(A)(a) of Section 40 has been satisfied.
This therefore becomes an absolute exemption, and I am not required to provide a public interest test on the application of this exemption.
Section 31(1)(a) - Law Enforcement - Disclosure would enable the public to try and further understand police recording and handling of hate crime in localised boroughs in a recent period of time.
Law enforcement measures are put in place to protect the community that we serve.
Other than the information already disclosed today and that disclosed routinely on the MPS website, further disclosure of information would undermine the public’s trust in the police to handling crime reporting and individual incidents professionally and sensitively. Full disclosure may lead to a decrease in contact with the police should the public fear constant adverse disclosures under FOIA will identify them or allow others to identify individuals. Under reporting of crime is a real concern to the MPS and disclosure regarding specific incidents may lead to that chilling effect amongst the community and erode trust in the police, which would not be in the public interest.
We believe that providing information not in the public domain (or that not disclosed today) would compromise law enforcement which may be likely to hinder the prevention and detection of crime. This would result in more risk to the public if used as intelligence (for example across different London/ or even UK) and consequently require the use of more police resources to counter any rise in hate crime.
Disclosure would undermine the public’s trust in police handling of incidents regarding Hate Crime considerately. Full disclosure is not in the public interest as it may lead to a decrease in contact with the police should the public fear constant adverse disclosures under FOIA that may identify them or allow others to identify individuals.
Under reporting of crime is a real concern to the MPS and disclosure regarding specific incidents may lead to that chilling effect amongst the community and erode trust in the police, which would not be in the public interest.
The full disclosure of information would not, in the view of the MPS, greatly further the public’s understanding and instead could only be used to hinder law enforcement and crime prevention.
The strongest reason favouring full disclosure is the public interest in the public gaining the greatest possible understanding of local incidents regarding Hate Crime.
The strongest reason favouring non-disclosure is ensuring public safety is not compromised (by disclosing information held for a policing purpose), that will aid individuals trying to omit crime or evade detection.
The MPS has determined that the public interest favours the application of this exemption.
This decision is reached on the understanding that the public interest is not what interests the public, but is what would be of greater good to the public if disclosed to the public as a whole. As advised, the Public Interest has been met to a large extent by the information already disclosed into the public domain that have had access to.
Disclosure
Attached to this letter is redacted data that could be disclosed to you today.