Current list of Dog Legislation Officers for each borough

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.033983

I note you seek access to the following information:

I would like a current list of Dog Legislation Officers (or similar role) for each borough, including email and phone contact details.

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 Information

Reason for decision

You have requested information in relation to a list of dog legislation officers including email and phone numbers. By list of officers, this has been taken to mean a list of the officer’s names, this information is exempt from disclosure as it is considered personal information. In addition, the email and phone numbers are also exempt from disclosure and I will explain this further below.

Section 31(1)(a) – Law Enforcement - of the Act provides that any information is exempt if its disclosure under the Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime.

I have claimed this exemption in that the release and publication of the contact details of officers, would provide persons intent on disrupting the work of the MPS, with information that would assist them in this endeavour.

The release and publication of the telephone numbers and email addresses of these officers, would provide persons intent on disrupting the work of these officers, 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 or send them vast amounts of unsolicited correspondence. This would tie up the resources of these individuals and cause disruption to the work of the MPS.

When considering whether the release of information is in the public interest, I have to consider whether the public interest is in favour of releasing information into the public domain or whether there is sufficient reason to support withholding the requested information. Having considered your request, I accept that there is a public interest in transparency when any request is made for police information. The public interest favouring release must be balanced against any associated risk and/or prejudice that would be caused by disclosure. Having carefully considered this, I have found that the public release and publication of contact details of these officers, would provide persons intent on disrupting the work of the MPS, with information that would assist them in this endeavour. Given this I have found that the release of this information is not in the public interest.

Section 40(2)(3) – Personal Information - of the Act provides that any information to which a request for information relates, is exempt information if the first condition of Section 40(3A)(a) is satisfied. The first condition of Section 40(3A)(a) states that personal information is exempt if its disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles. If the disclosure of the requested personal data would not contravene the data protection principles, the disclosure must also not contravene Sections 3A(b) and 3B of the Act.

There are six principles that are set out in Article 5(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that dictate when the processing of personal data is lawful. The first principle requires that any processing of personal data must be lawful, fair and transparent. Under Article 6(1)(f) of the GDPR, 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.

The names of these officers, do not hold roles where they would reasonably expect their names to be published in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. I have not therefore identified a legitimate interest that would be satisfied in disclosing their personal data in response to this request for information.

Disclosure

The MPS have one Dog Legislation Officer (DLO) Sergeant and six DLO’s in a central unit within the MPS. These officers cover the whole of the MPS.