Ethnicity of accused of crime by borough in 1997, 2011 and 2021
Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.24.037635
I note you seek access to the following information:
Accused ethnic data (total crime) broken down by borough for the years of 1997, 2001, 2011 and 2021?
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)(3A)(a) – Personal Information
Reason for decision
Before I explain reasons for the decisions that I have made in relation to your request, I thought that it would be helpful to 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 respect of a request must, if permitted, state under Section 1(a) of the Act, whether it holds the requested information and, if held, then communicate that information to the applicant under Section 1(b) of the Act.
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 unsuitable 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.
This is best demonstrated by the FOI disclosures on the Disclosure Log section of the MPS website:
I have considered your request for information, as stated above for the calendar year 2001.
You have requested specific record level data. This level of information is not suitable for public consumption. Should the MPS publish crime data at the level requested, it would be at such a level that would make the identification of individuals extremely possible. To produce and publish crime related information at a level that would identify the involved parties would not be lawful, fair or in line with our processing commitments. Thus, disclosure of the information at record level in the format requested is exempt in accordance with section 40(2)(3A)(a) of the Act.
When looking at disclosing the requested information, I have considered various pieces of guidance, including the ICO’s guidance which examines a number of issues relating to the disclosure of crime data.
I have, when looking at the data for the calendar year 2001, considered the following, broadly equivalent factors when making my decision:
- The time periods.
- Sensitivity of the crimes.
- The availability of other sources of information.
- The effect on victims/perpetrators.
You are requesting crime data broken down by Accused Ethnicity and Borough for the calendar year 2001.
It is often believed that such information, even though detailed, is unlikely to allow anyone to actually identify those involved as the data is ‘too abstract’ and ‘there would be no way of knowing who these people were unless you were a witness to the crime’ for example.
However, when considering identifiability, we have to assume that we are not looking just at the means reasonably likely to be used by the ordinary man in the street, but also the means that are likely to be used by a determined person (or a ‘motivated intruder’) with a particular reason to want to identify individuals. Examples would include investigative journalists, estranged partners, stalkers, to name but a few.
If this level of data was to be disclosed, it could be pieced together with information already known by individuals or already in the public domain in order to identify the individuals involved. For example, individuals may be partially aware of certain details of an alleged crime through word of mouth, witnessing an incident or police presence. To disclose certain details in relation to the nature of an incident may allow such individuals to ascertain or infer that a specific allegation or incident relates to a particular individual, and what the outcome of that offence was. This would be unfair to persons that were victims of a crime and/or to those suspected of an offence.
Therefore, where the request is seeking information that would essentially allow access to third party personal data (such as in this case) 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 information sought under your Freedom of Information request, broken down by Accused Ethnicity and Borough (area), we consider to be 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 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
Please find attached to this email, a spreadsheet in which the requested information for the calendar years 1997, 2011 and 2021, has been provided.
IMPORTANT:
• Please ensure that the note section within the spreadsheet is read in conjunction with the data in this report to ensure that it is interpreted correctly.