Administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.034570

I note you seek access to the following information:

Please note there are six parts to my request.

Q1. Between 1 January 2021 and 27 November 2023, has your force investigated:
014/01 – Administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion.
014/02 – Procuring drugs etc to cause abortion.
Please provide a Yes/No answer

Q2. If the answer to Q1 is “yes”, please provide the total number of times your force has investigated a case of 014/01 – Administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion or 014/02 – Procuring drugs etc to cause abortion.

Q3. If the answer to Q1 is “yes”, between 1 January 2021 and 27 November 2023, has your force requested a woman hand over data from a menstrual tracking app to aid your investigation?

Q4. If the answer to Q3 is ‘yes”, please will you provide the name of the menstrual tracking apps?

Q5. If the answer to Q1 is “yes”, between 1 January 2021 and 27 November 2023, has your force requested a menstrual tracking app (such as Flo or FEMM) share a woman’s data with you to aid your investigation?

Q6: If the answer to Q5 is “yes”, please will you provide the name of the menstrual tracking apps?”

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 30(1)(a)(i) – Criminal Investigations
Section 40(2)(3A)(a) – Personal Information

Reason for decision

You have asked us to disclose if the MPS has investigated any offences under offence codes: 014/01, and 014/02, for the date range 01/01/2021 up to 27/11/2023, and if so, the total number of investigations broken down by each offence code. You have then further asked if the MPS has requested a woman to hand over or share data from a menstrual tracking app to aid the investigation, and for the name of any such app if handed over or shared.

Please be advised that I have made the decision to disclose information in response to your first question, however, due to extremely low numbers of investigations located for those offences over the date range you are interested in, I am unable to provide any further information. If we were to disclose the total number of investigations conducted by the MPS for those specific offence types and for the specific date range you are interested in, and provide investigative information, this could identify individuals concerned. Any such disclosure would release extremely sensitive personal information in relation to individuals concerned, into the public domain, and would prejudice ongoing investigations.

For the above reasons the exemptions provided by Section 40(2)(3), and Section 30(1)(a)(i) of the Act, have been applied to refuse full disclosure of the information you are seeking. I have instead made the decision to answer your question 1 only.

Section 40(2)(a)(b) & (3)(a)(i) is an absolute exemption in cases which would breach the right to privacy afforded to persons under the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), as in this case. Disclosing the information you have requested would identify individual cases and individuals concerned and would release personal sensitive information in relation to those individuals into the public domain. This would be in breach of the DPA 2018 and GDPR and there is therefore no requirement to evidence harm or conduct a public interest test.

Section 30(1)(a)(i) – Criminal Investigations - Disclosing information in relation to investigations, when extremely low figures have been located for specific offence types, and disclosing if and what information has or has not been obtained in the process of those investigations would harm investigations. Disclosing this level of detail would undermine the investigative process, diminishing the MPS’ ability to accurately and successfully determine if an individual is, or individuals are, guilty of a criminal offence.

Information must not be revealed which would only be known to the investigating team or the offender.

The outcome for some of the offences may not yet be determined therefore, to release any further information would compromise our law enforcement investigative functions and which could hinder an individual’s right to a fair trial cannot be in the public interest.

There is a public interest in the transparency of the investigation of crime and providing assurance that the MPS is appropriately and effectively dealing with criminal activity. However, there is also a strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police investigations, by not releasing information that could hinder that investigation and prejudice the outcome of any legal proceedings.

I consider that the benefit that would result from the information being disclosed does not outweigh the considerations favouring non-disclosure, particularly given the level of information disclosed today – which I believe satisfies the wider public interest.

Section 40(2)(3A)(a) – Personal Information - Under Section 40(2) and (3) of the Act, Public Authorities are able to withhold information where its release would identify any living individual and breach the principles of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). I have applied this exemption in that the identity of individuals that may be realised through providing the information broken down in the format you have requested would constitute personal data which, if released, would be in breach of the rights provided by the DPA.

There are six data protection principles that are set out in Section 34 of the Data
Protection Act 2018. The first principle requires that the disclosure of the requested personal data must be lawful and fair. Under the Act, 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.

It should be noted that any disclosure is a release to the world at large, and this is a particularly sensitive subject matter. You are seeking information in relation to very sensitive investigations, and whilst you are seeking this over an approximate three year date range, extremely low numbers of offences have been located for these offence types. Whilst disclosure may not directly identify an individual involved by name, the mosaic effect of what may already be in the public domain as well as local knowledge combined with a release would make identification extremely likely. The release of this information would not only be unlawful, but would also be unfair and would contravene the first principle of the DPA 2018, as the persons concerned would have no reasonable expectation that the MPS would make this information publicly available.

Although I understand there is an interest in the information you are seeking I believe this interest has been satisfied by the release of the disclosed information. I do not believe that providing any more information, when there is a reasonable risk that the additional information would identify individuals involved, and prejudice investigations, would add to any wider public debate that may be ongoing.

In reaching my decision, I have, in each case, given due regard to the condition at Article 6(1)(a) and 6(1)(e) of the GDPR. Condition one of the GDPR requires that consideration is given to whether consent for disclosure has been given whilst Condition six requires that consideration is given to performance of a public task in the public interest.

Having considered both conditions, I have established that no consent is present or would likely be received to release this information.

The provision to refuse access to information under Section 40(2)(a)(b) and (3A)(a) of the Act is both absolute and class based. When this exemption is claimed, it is accepted that harm would result from disclosure. There is accordingly no requirement to demonstrate what that harm may be in refusing access to information.

Disclosure

Q1 - Between 1 January 2021 and 27 November 2023, has your force investigated: 014/01 – Administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion. 014/02 – Procuring drugs etc to cause abortion.
Please provide a Yes/No answer

Yes