Corrosive offences reported in London in 2023

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.24.037649

I note you seek access to the following information:

I would like to request the number of offences that were categorised as a corrosive offence in London between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023 inclusive.

1. The number of offences that were recorded as physical corrosive substance/fluid attacks against the person.
2. The number of threats of corrosive substance attacks against the person.
3. The age and gender of victims of the said offences mentioned in 1 and 2.
4. The age and gender of suspects of the said offences mentioned in 1 and 2.
5. Outcomes of physical corrosive substance attacks against the person.
6. Outcomes of threats of corrosive substance attacks against the person.

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)(a)(b) and (3)(a)(i)(ii)(b) - 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 Freedom of Information Act 2000 (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.

For the requested corrosive crime offences for 2023 where the value is too low risks identification of individuals as these are rare offences which have happened recently and so redactions were made as very low offence counts could cause an individual to be identified. This cannot be allowed.

Section 40 Personal Information - 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.

The information sought under your Freedom of Information request includes the following which we consider to be Personal Data, corrosive crime offences for 2023 where the value is too.

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 Schedule 19 of the Data Protection Act 2018, specifically Section 58 of that schedule).

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

Please see the spreadsheet below with redacted low value data.