Traffic management cameras and ANPR

The request was successful.

Dear Islington Borough Council,

Could you please inform me:

1) how many traffic management cameras the Islington Borough Council owns, runs or maintains, if any,

2) how many of these cameras are automated number plate recognition (ANPR) enabled,

3) what data is collected, from the ANPR-enabled cameras and from the non ANPR-enabled cameras,

4) what use is made of this data,

5) how long is this data is retained for,

6) with which external bodies is this data shared,

7) and the location of these cameras.

Yours faithfully,

David Mery

FOIA, Islington Borough Council

Thank your for your email. If your email concerns a Freedom of Information
request to Islington Council, your email has been received and will be
processed shortly.

Kind regards,

The Information Governance team
Technology Solutions Group
Islington Council
Room G17
Town Hall
Upper street
N1 2UD
[1]www.islington.gov.uk

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References

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FOIA, Islington Borough Council

Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act request, received on 11
July. Your request has been processed, and your unique reference number
is 373130. Please make note of this reference number should you need to
contact us about your request.

Our team has sent your request to the appropriate service area within
Islington Council, and an officer from that team will respond directly
to your request.

If you have any questions, please contact us by email at
[Islington Borough Council request email]

Kind regards

Leila Ridley
Information Compliance Manager
Corporate Resources - Technology Solutions Group Islington Council Room
G17, Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, London N1 2UD

http://www.islington.gov.uk <http://www.islington.gov.uk/>

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FOIA, Islington Borough Council

Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act request, received on 11
July. Your request has been processed, and your unique reference number
is 373130. Please make note of this reference number should you need to
contact us about your request.

Our team has sent your request to the appropriate service area within
Islington Council, and an officer from that team will respond directly
to your request.

If you have any questions, please contact us by email at
[Islington Borough Council request email]

Kind regards

Leila Ridley
Information Compliance Manager
Corporate Resources - Technology Solutions Group Islington Council Room
G17, Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, London N1 2UD

http://www.islington.gov.uk <http://www.islington.gov.uk/>

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Pearton, Brad, Islington Borough Council

Dear Mr Mery

Thank you for your recent Freedom of Information request received on 9
July 2011 with regards to traffic enforcement cameras. Please find the
details of your request below.

1. How many traffic management cameras the Islington Borough Council owns,
runs or maintains.

The Parking Services section loan 35 CCTV enforcement cameras from the
Crime and Disorder unit for parking enforcement during controlled hours.

2. How many of these cameras are automated number plate recognition
(ANPR) enabled

None of the 35 cameras are fitted with this device.

The further four questions you submitted all relate to ANPR and therefore
are not applicable.

If you have a complaint about the handling of this information request,
please contact: Information Complaints, Corporate Resources, 60 Highbury
New Park, London, N5 2DJ. Email: [email address]

Further information is also available from the Information Commissioner's
Office, at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Telephone: 01625 545 700. Web: [1]www.ico.gov.uk

Regards

Brad Pearton

Technical Officer/Information Governance Officer

Parking & Business Service

Public Realm

Environment & Regeneration

T:07584370713

E: [email address]

Web: [2]www.islington.gov.uk

Alternative Contact: Joe Turner 07584370705

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Dear Mr Pearton,

Thank you for your response, however the further five (not four) questions are not exclusive to ANPR cameras. I specifically asked 'and from the non ANPR-enabled cameras'.

I look forward to receiving answers to these questions. To make it easier, let me copy them here again:

"3) what data is collected, [...] from
the non ANPR-enabled cameras,

4) what use is made of this data,

5) how long is this data is retained for,

6) with which external bodies is this data shared,

7) and the location of these cameras."

Yours sincerely,

David Mery

Pearton, Brad, Islington Borough Council

Dear Mr Mery

My apologies, I will get you the relevant information ASAP

Regards
Brad

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Dear Mr Pearton,

I would appreciate if you can let me know when you will be able to get the relevant information and respond to the remaining questions of my FOI request?

Yours sincerely,

David Mery

Pearton, Brad, Islington Borough Council

I will return on Wednesday 17th August when I will respond to you.
Should the matter be urgent please email [email address].

This e-mail is intended for the addressee only. If you have received it in
error, please contact the sender and delete the material from your
computer. Please be aware that information in this email may be
confidential, legally privileged and/or copyright protected.

Pearton, Brad, Islington Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Mery

Thank you for your email and may I apologise for the delay in this reply
as I have not been in the office the past week.

With regards to our CCTV cameras and the points you have raised I have
been advised of the following:

The cameras are used to capture vehicles committing moving traffic
contraventions. The DVLA are then contacted electronically to obtain the
owner details of the vehicles committing the offences, and then Penalty
Charge Notices are then issued to the owners. Data is then held on ICPS,
which is the council's internal database indefinitely.

I have attached for you're a spreadsheet of the camera locations
throughout the borough.

Should you require further details I would suggest contacting our CCTV
Crime and Disorder Manager George Heath at [email address]

Regards
Brad

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Dear Mr Pearton,

Many thanks for your additional response and apology. I would appreciate a couple of clarifications of your answers:

a) The enforcement cameras are marked in the first tab of the spreadsheet as "Crime And Disorder/Enforcement" suggesting use for both traffic enforcement and crime and disorder monitoring while your letter suggests these cameras are used solely "to capture vehicles committing moving traffic contraventions". Which is the correct interpretation?

b) Can you clarify your sentence: "Data is then held on ICPS, which is the council's internal database indefinitely". In particular, what use of this personal data by the Council justifies an indefinite retention (in accordance with the fifth principle of the act)?

Yours sincerely,

David Mery

Pearton, Brad, Islington Borough Council

Dear Mr Mery

Thank you for your email.

My apologies if my email and the details provided were not clear.

I can confirm that our CCTV cameras throughout the borough are used to
assist police and used as a tool to tackle things such as antisocial
behaviour as well as traffic management. Details of this can be found
here:

http://www.islington.gov.uk/community/sa...
slington.gov.uk|referral

With regards to your second point raised, Parking tickets are recognised
as financial transactions and consequently held in accordance with the
council's financial record retention policy for a period of six years.
The database currently holds information going back around seven years
and we are currently conducting a project to remove this data from the
system.

Information that is kept in the parking database is retained in order to
identify persistent offenders and evaders. In many cases personal data
such as an address is not known or recorded in the system. Payment
information is also not held in the database. In addition the council
has a policy to help people manage their debt, so information from the
parking database may be made available to other areas of the council
such as Council Tax, or Housing Rents.

Regards
Brad

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Dear Mr Pearton,

Thank you for your further response and apologies. These further explanations do offer some clarifications, but I'm afraid that some of the explanations still lead to some confusion on my part.

The document you link to in your first paragraph mentions that "CCTV operators are in constant two-way radio contact with the Metropolitan Police Service". From that I infer that no more data collected from these cameras (such as CCTV images) is directly shared with the police. Is this correct? If not what other data is shared? This is the closest you went to answering my original question "6) with which external bodies is this data shared,". Is the police (and is that Met and the BTP forces?) the only external body with which some of the "data [that] is collected, [...] from the non ANPR-enabled cameras" is shared?

In your third paragraph about "Information that is kept in the parking database is retained in order to identify persistent offenders and evaders.", you do not mention any specific retention period. You explain that "In many cases personal data such as an address is not known or recorded in the system", but that does mean that in many other cases personal data is retained. Looking at the "ICPS Tickets - user guide" sections 8 "Photos card" and 9 "Address card", for instance, clearly shows this to be the case. I trust that Islington residents are grateful that this data is retained "to help people [...] so information [...] may be made available to other areas of the council". Is this personal data retained indefinitely? If not for how long? And when it is shared with other areas of the council is it retained in different systems subject to different retention rules?

Yours sincerely,

David Mery

Richard Taylor left an annotation ()

The link given was split over more than one line, it should be:

http://www.islington.gov.uk/community/sa...

David Mery left an annotation ()

Thanks Richard, I've emailed team @WTDK about this URL related bug.

The 'ICPS Tickets - user guide' I mentioned is available (pdf) at http://www.islington.gov.uk/Downloadable...

Dear Mr Pearton,

I would appreciate if you can let me know when you will be able to find answers to the remaining open issues of this FOI request and bring it to an end?

Yours sincerely,

David Mery

Dear Mr Pearton,

This is to remind you that I am waiting for a reply to my email dated 28 August. If you are unable to provide a substantive response promptly, please advise (as requested in my email dated 5 September) when you will be able to do so.

Yours sincerely,

David Mery

Dear Islington Borough Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Islington Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Traffic management cameras and ANPR'.

My request has only been partially answered. Can you please review the response so far and provide the missing information, in particular as detailed in my last substantive communication dated 28 August 2011.

Also, please review the handling of the communications about this request. The officer dealing with this request, initially very prompt and helpful, has not bothered to even acknowledge my latest communications, which leaves me no other possibility than requesting this review.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/tr...

Yours faithfully,

David Mery

FOIA, Islington Borough Council

Thank your for your email. If your email concerns a Freedom of Information
request to Islington Council, your email has been received and will be
processed shortly.
 
Kind regards,
 
 
The Information Governance team
Technology Solutions Group
Islington Council
Room G17
Town Hall
Upper street
N1 2UD
[1]www.islington.gov.uk

 

This e-mail is intended for the addressee only. If you have received it in
error, please contact the sender and delete the material from your
computer.  Please be aware that information in this email may be
confidential, legally privileged and/or copyright protected.

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infocomplaints, Islington Borough Council

Dear Mr Mery,

Thank you for your request for an internal review, received on 22
September, please accept my apologies for the delay in sending you this
acknowledgement. Your request has been processed, and your unique
reference number is 2185. Please make note of this reference number
should you need to contact us about your request.

If you have any questions, please contact us by email at
[email address]


Kind regards,

Leila
Leila Ridley
Information Compliance Manager
Corporate Resources - Technology Solutions Group Islington Council Room
G17, Town Hall, Upper Street, London N1 2UD

Email: [email address]
<mailto:[email address]>
Web: www.islington.gov.uk <http://www.islington.gov.uk/> Alternative
contact: [email address]

This e-mail is intended for the addressee only. If you have received it in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from your computer. Please be aware that information in this email may be confidential, legally privileged and/or copyright protected.

infocomplaints, Islington Borough Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Mery,
 
Please find attached our response to your complaint regarding our handling
of your Freedom of Information request. Please accept my apologies for the
delay in sending you this response.
 
Kind regards,
 
Leila
Leila Ridley
Information Compliance Manager
Corporate Resources - Technology Solutions Group
Islington Council
Room G17, Town Hall, Upper Street, London N1 2UD
 
Email: [1][email address]
Web: [2]www.islington.gov.uk
Alternative contact: [email address]
 

 

This e-mail is intended for the addressee only. If you have received it in
error, please contact the sender and delete the material from your
computer.  Please be aware that information in this email may be
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Dear Ms Ridley,

Many thanks for your response, apologies and explanations.

Yours sincerely,

David Mery