Proportion of status dogs involved in cases investigated by the MPS from April 2020 – March 2021

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.028288

I note you seek access to the following information:

I refer to Freedom of Information Request Reference No: 01.FOI.19.012413 and your response to my request 01/FOI/22/026521.

Regarding scene management for serious and fatal dog attacks, the document above reads:

“It is important to ascertain the role of the dog, especially if the incident has occurred at the family home. Is the dog a valued member of the family group, referred to as a pet or companion dog?
Alternatively, the dog may be a guard dog or status symbol, or it may be what is referred to as a “resident dog”, spending the vast majority of its life shut away from, and isolated from the family group, with very little mental or physical stimulation or socialisation.”

For the Financial Year 2020-21, for records under offence code 008/21 (allowing a dog to be dangerously out of control and injure a person) that resulted in an injury level of serious or fatal, please provide the number of dogs that matched each of the descriptions above (pet/companion, guard dog, status symbol, resident dog).

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
• Exact date of reports, CRIS Numbers and specific information regarding each dog including location, if disclosed, would identify an individual.
• Crime reports will need to be read in order to find out the role of the dog (guard dog/family dog) this would highlight personal information that could identify an individual if provided with other 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 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 only providing the following.

A count of Fatal and Serious Dog Dangerously out of Control in a Public Place Injuring Person Offences Recorded between 01/04/2020 to 31/03/2021

Grand Total: 82

Source System: The live data for this report was extracted from CRIS on 22/03/2023.
Date Range: The Supervisor Recorded Date was set to be between 01/04/2020 and 31/03/2021.

Definition: A count of Fatal and Serious Dog Dangerously out of Control in a Public Place Injuring Person Offences.

Caveats
The Home Office Classification was set to be:
008/21 - Owner/Person in charge Allow Dog to be Dangerously Out of Control in a Public Place Injuring Person or Assist Dog

The VIW Role was set to be Victim (V).

The VIW Injury Degree was set to be either:

HA - Fatal - Victim has DIED as a result of the offence.

HB - Serious - Victim sustained SERIOUS injury as a result of the offence.