Dear Sir or Madam,

Please could you provide me with, under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, the location of every mobile phone mast that has been
erected in the UK. Your reply would preferably be in the form of an
electronic database export including a grid reference (such as
Longitude/Latitude or Ordnance Survey).

I am presuming you hold this information, as I have no need to make
individual FoI requests to every planning office in the country.

Yours faithfully,

Stray Taoist.

Dear Mr Taoist

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000; Request for information case 1-59089577

Access to Sitefinder Database

Thank you for your enquiry of 24 June 2008. As your request concerns
mobile base station data, Ofcom has considered the request under the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004, SI 2004 No.3391 (EIR); as it
is required to do under section 39 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Sitefinder was set up, initially by the Radiocommunications Agency (now a
part of Ofcom), as a result of recommendations of the Stewart Report to
make information available to the general public. It was not intended to
be an engineering or planning tool but a general resource for people
wishing to inform themselves about individual sites. Please note that
Ofcom does not hold the full addresses and postcodes of sites, only
datafiles that generate maps within the Sitefinder tool.

The data within Sitefinder is owned by the mobile network operators, who
supplied it on a voluntary basis. Ofcom has not, therefore, supplied the
underlying dataset to any enquirers. In relation to the provision of the
current information Ofcom holds on masts sites, in September 2007 the
Information Tribunal upheld an earlier Decision of the Information
Commissioner directing Ofcom to release or publish the Sitefinder national
dataset. Ofcom appealed this decision to the High Court, which was heard
on 8^th April 2008. The High Court dismissed Ofcom's appeal. Ofcom is
taking the matter to further appeal and while this appeal is being heard,
Ofcom is not obliged to provide the dataset. Following constructive
discussions with mobile network operators, most contributors (excepting
T-Mobile) have agreed to resume voluntary supply of updated information.

Ofcom considers that the release of the data would adversely affect public
safety in that if the dataset were made public it would provide assistance
to criminals intent on stealing materials from base station sites by
increasing the efficiency of a trawl of the most valuable sites in an
area. Also, it would assist criminals to close down specific geographic
areas by identifying key locations vital to the Police communication
infrastructure. In addition, each mobile operator owns the intellectual
property rights in the source data and to disclose this information would
adversely affect such rights.

Ofcom therefore considers that it cannot disclose the national dataset,
whether in whole or in part, that you have requested as it falls under the
exceptions in Regulation 12 (5) (a) and (c) of the Environmental
Information Regulations 2004, In applying these exemptions Ofcom has had
to balance the public interest in withholding the information against the
public interest in disclosure. The attached Annexes set out the exceptions
in full, as well as the factors Ofcom has considered in deciding where the
public interest lay. However, there may be more exemptions that would
apply to this case that have not been covered here.

If you require bulk data of all the operators, e.g. for research or other
purposes, you may wish to contact the Mobile Operators' Association to
request this (or, alternatively, contact the individual operators). The
Mobile Operators' Association is at Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell
Square, London WC1B 5EE, e-mail: [1][email address], web:
[2]www.mobilemastinfo.com. The contact details for the individual
operators are available at [3]www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk.

If this is to provide a web-based information resource for the public, you
may wish to consider posting a link to Sitefinder to facilitate individual
postcode searches. Linking to Ofcom-hosted webpages is permitted as long
as it loads in a new window, i.e. not a frame. For full details, please
see the website disclaimer at:
[4]http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/accoun/dis...

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. If you are
unhappy with the level of service you have received in relation to your
request from Ofcom, please see the guidance below. Please remember to
quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Shilpa Patel

Ofcom

If you are unhappy with the response or level of service you have received
in relation to your request from Ofcom, you may ask for an internal
review. If you ask us for an internal review of our decision, it will be
treated as a formal complaint and will be subject to an independent review
within Ofcom. We will acknowledge the complaint and inform you of the
date by which you might expect to be told the outcome.

The following outcomes are possible:

o the original decision is upheld; or

o the original decision is reversed or modified.

Timing

If you wish to exercise your right to an internal review you should
contact us within two months of the date of this letter. There is no
statutory deadline for undertaking internal reviews and it will depend
upon the complexity of the case, but we aim to conclude all internal
reviews within 2 months. If you wish to request an internal review, you
should contact:

Graham Howell

The Secretary to the Corporation

Ofcom

Riverside House

2a Southwark Bridge Road

London SE1 9HA

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Annex A

Exception in full - Regulation 12 (5) (a) - a public authority may refuse
to disclose information to the extent that its disclosure would adversely
affect - public safety.

Factors for disclosure Factors for withholding

o accessible information o To make the national dataset available in a
of the complete national comprehensive and searchable form would:
dataset of mast sites in
the UK

- provide assistance to criminals, aiding them in
stealing materials from base station sites by
increasing the efficiency of a trawl of the most
valuable sites in an area, which in turn might
make the mast a danger to the public and to the
personnel of the mobile operators; and

- compromise the security of the TETRA sites
which provide the Police and Emergency Service
radio network. If the national dataset was made
public persons would be able to target and close
down specific geographic areas by identifying key
locations vital to the Police communication
infrastructure. If this were to happen, police
officers in the field would not be able to
respond to emergency police calls which would
adversely affect those in need of such support.

Reasons why public interest favours withholding information

To preserve the safety of the public and the integrity of the Emergency
Services' communications network - in order to protect: the public and
personnel of the mobile operators from the consequences of the theft of
mobile masts materials and vandalism of mobile masts; and, the essential
police radio communications that are necessary for public safety without
which as mentioned above police officers in the field would not be able to
respond to emergency police calls. Also, it is in the public interest not
to disclose a national dataset as to do so would mean that the mobile
operators would be unlikely to provide voluntarily the level of
information to Ofcom that they do at present.

Annex B

Exception in full - Regulation 12 (5) (c) - a public authority may refuse
to disclose information to the extent that its disclosure would adversely
affect - intellectual property rights.

Factors for disclosure Factors for withholding

o Accessible information of the o The source data for Sitefinder is
complete national dataset of voluntarily supplied by its owners,
mast sites in the UK the network operators, for open
publication in an agreed format.
Each mobile operator owns the
intellectual property rights in the
source data. To disclose this
information on a national basis
would adversely affect such rights.
For example, to provide the raw data
in other forms would provide
sections of the public (such as
competitors) with a `springboard'
from which to construct the original
data, namely the design of each
operator's 2G and 3G networks.

Reasons why public interest favours withholding information

The aggregate raw data that the mobile operators provide to Ofcom for
Sitefinder is neither Crown/Ofcom owned nor public knowledge at the time
of its disclosure to Ofcom. The data is disclosed by the mobile operators
for the specific and limited purpose of compiling Sitefinder and for
presentation to the public in the agreed format. It is in the public
interest to protect their commercial interests in this data. Also, it is
in the public interest not to disclose a national dataset as to do so
would mean that the mobile operators would be unlikely to provide
voluntarily the level of information to Ofcom that they do at present.

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.mobilemastinfo.com/
http://www.mobilemastinfo.com/
3. http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/
http://www.sitefinder.ofcom.org.uk/
4. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/accoun/dis...
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/accoun/dis...

Dear Shilpa,

Thanks for that! A very informative reply, I appreciate it.

Yours sincerely,

Dear Shilpa,

It has come to my attention that my request has been made before,
and went to the Information Commissioner, and in that case, the
data was required to be made public.

I would like to ask, if this has been done before, why it was
withheld in my case.

The finding of the Commissioner can be seen at:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/d...

This seems to contradict what you told me. Could you clarify this
for me, please? Was this appealed by OfCom? (I can't find details
of an appeal, nor an overturning of the ICO findings.)

Yours sincerely,

Dear Sir

As stated in our response to you of 16/07/2008

"In relation to the provision of the current information Ofcom holds on
masts sites, in September 2007 the Information Tribunal upheld an earlier
Decision of the Information Commissioner directing Ofcom to release or
publish the Sitefinder national dataset. Ofcom appealed this decision to
the High Court, which was heard on 8th April 2008. The High Court
dismissed Ofcom's appeal. Ofcom is taking the matter to further appeal and
while this appeal is being heard, Ofcom is not obliged to provide the
dataset."

I hope this answers your query.

Kind regards

Alex Bevan

Information Requests

[email address]

show quoted sections