Formation of advice on crime mapping

The request was partially successful.

Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

you have been giving advice to various parties engaged in the publication of the recent police 'crime maps'.

your press release of 1 february refers

http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/...

the approximation of crime locations and aggregation of reported crimes has caused public disquiet.

i request a copy of your final advice. however, publication of your advice itself is not sufficient (i notice that your press release does not refer to a published edocument).

there is a strong public interest in understanding how your office arrived at the advice to which your press notice refers and the nature of your dialogue with the principal actors as they formed their opinions. in particular how your office balanced the public interest factors with privacy issues.

i request all correspondence, records, emails, texts documents, presentations, meeting notes etc and any other information you hold that dicusses issues around crime mapping from May 2010 to date. you note in your press release that advice needs to be kept under review and such information will help the public help you in that regard.

this should include your offices internal dialogue, dialogue with the home office, other bits of government and their representatives, other police bodies such as ACPO, individual forces, lobby groups such as vicitims support organisations, citizens and public office holders.

if you hold correspondence with bodies that are not covered by FOI my understanding is that you are obliged to release that, including their side of the correspondence such as an email chain.

I also request a simple list of organisations and members of the public you consulted on the broad matter of crime mapping during the period above in forming your advice.

If you cannot meet this request without exceeding cost limits then please give me what information you can within the limit and contact me to discuss what might be the most useful response.

Yours faithfully,

wiliam perrin

Information Commissioner's Office

2 February 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

Dear Mr Perrin

Request for Information

Thank you for your earlier email requesting information regarding advice
given by the Information Commissioner’s Office regarding Crime Mapping.

Your request is being dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.  We will respond by 2 March 2011 which is 20 working
days from the day after we received your request.

Should you wish to reply to this email, please be careful not to amend the
information in the ‘subject’ field. This will ensure that the information
is added directly to your case. However, please be aware that this is an
automated process; the information will not be read by a member of our
staff until your case is allocated to a request handler.

Yours sincerely

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Information Commissioner's Office

4 February 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

Dear Mr Perrin

Further to your request for information regarding the advice given by the
Information Commissioner’s Office in relation to Crime Mapping, please be
aware that this information is available on our website under the heading
[1]Crime Mapping Advice.

We are currently collating the information relevant to the rest of your
request and, as previously explained, we will respond to your FOI request
by 2 March 2011.

Yours sincerely

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/...

Information Commissioner's Office

2 March 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

Dear Mr Perrin

Further to my email of 2 February, we are now in a position to respond to
your request for information regarding the advice provided by the
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in relation to crime mapping.

In this email we provide some background information explaining the ICO’s
role and involvement in relation to the crime mapping initiative and the
approach taken to arrive at the advice we provided. The information we
hold relevant to your request falls into several broad categories which
are listed below and will be provided, where appropriate, as attachments
to further emails. Details of our internal review procedure and how to
complain about the way we have handled your information request will be
included in the final part of our response.

The broad categories of information held in relation to your request are:

• Information sources considered when producing our response to the
initiative.
• Versions of the crime mapping advice paper produced by the ICO.
• Information relating to the Crime Mapping Strategic Steering Group.
• Information relating to crime mapping in the context of the wider
Privacy and Transparency review being undertaken by the Cabinet
Office.
• Correspondence relating to the and Maidenhead local public data panel
discussion about crime mapping.
• Communications relating to the Home Office and ICO press releases
regarding crime mapping.
• Other information containing references to crime mapping.
• Correspondence between the ICO and the Home Office.
• Internal ICO correspondence.

Our Involvement - Background

We were originally consulted about crime mapping in 2008. In response, the
then Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, wrote to the Minister Tony
McNulty on 5 August 2008 to outline the ICO’s concerns in relation to this
initiative. We acknowledged that publishing details of crimes may increase
transparency concerning policing and enable closer community working
however we highlighted the need to strike a balance between such public
policy objectives and the privacy of victims. At that time we acknowledged
that the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Greater London Authority
(GLA) had taken on board our concerns to establish an approach which built
in appropriate safeguards. In practice this meant that reporting on crimes
such as theft or burglary or motor vehicles would be limited to ‘lower
super output’ areas containing a minimum of 400 dwellings. Our view was
that this significantly broadened the area to which the information
related which minimised the risk of any intrusion into personal privacy
and we suggested a higher threshold for offences such as racially
motivated offences or sexual offences.

Our Involvement - Current

With regard to the current initiative, we were contacted by the Home
Office on 27 August 2010 to request advice on the government’s commitment
to publish crime data at a level at which the public can see what is
happening on their streets. We provided some initial advice in an email to
the Home Office on 10 September 2010.

After some further correspondence with the Home Office, we produced a
first version of our advice paper about crime mapping for wider
circulation on 10 November 2010. This advice was then updated and a final
version produced on 24 November which, as previously advised, is published
on our website. We were also invited to contribute to a local crime
mapping initiative in the and Maidenhead area. Although this is a separate
initiative, we see the broad issues as being the same.

We have also participated in the Crime Mapping Strategic Steering Group
run by the National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) which is still
ongoing. Our role on the Steering Group is to provide independent
advice.    

Your Request

In your request you asked for “all correspondence, records, emails, texts
documents, presentations, meeting notes etc and any other information you
hold that dicusses (sic) issues around crime mapping from May 2010 to
date.
this should include your offices internal dialogue, dialogue with
the home office, other bits of government and their
representatives, other police bodies such as ACPO, individual
forces, lobby groups such as vicitims support organisations,
citizens and public office holders.”

As mentioned above, the relevant documents will be provided as attachments
to further emails where appropriate.

You also requested

“a simple list of organisations and members of the public you consulted on
the broad matter of crime mapping during the period above in forming your
advice.”

We do not hold any information relating to this part of your request as we
did not consult when producing our advice. We have said that it is a
‘live’ document and we will be prepared to update it to reflect
developments as these projects progress. As the implementation of crime
mapping is a Home Office initiative, the responsibility for consultation
lies with the Home Office and they have undertaken a Privacy Impact
Assessment which involved consulting with stakeholders.

The Data Protection Act will apply where crime mapping involves the
processing of personal data and we have advised that organisations
responsible for the creation and publication of crime maps will be data
controllers and will need to comply with the legislation. We have
stressed that the effect of crime-mapping, particularly its impact on the
privacy of victims and others, must be monitored and assessed, given that
crime-mapping is relatively new in the . We have no doubt that the
precise pin-pointing of domestic premises where crimes have taken place
could have a significant impact on the privacy of individuals associated
with those premises.

Further information follows in four more emails.

Yours sincerely

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Information Commissioner's Office

8 Attachments

Link: [1]File-List

2nd March 2011

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

 

Dear Mr Perrin

 

Further to my previous email, please find attached information relating to
the following categories listed previously.

 

• Information sources considered when producing our response to the
initiative.
• Versions of the crime mapping advice paper produced by the ICO.

 

The information relating to the first category is contained in the PDF
file entitled “Information sources for CM response”. You will note that
there are a number of websites/URL’s mentioned in the file which should be
accessible from your web browser.

 

All the different versions of crime mapping advice we produced are
attached, including the draft versions. The published version is called
“Crime Mapping Advice – V2.0 Final Version”. The other version we provided
to the Home Office was “Crime Mapping Advice – V2.0 10/11/10”.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Andrew Rose

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

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Information Commissioner's Office

8 Attachments

2nd March 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

Dear Mr Perrin

Please find attached eight files containing information relating to the
category referred to as “Information relating to the Crime Mapping
Strategic Steering Group.”

The two PDF files labelled “CM Steering Group Papers Part 1 & 2” contain
some redactions to third party personal data. The information relating to
other individuals is exempt from disclosure to you under section 40(2) of
the FOIA, by virtue of section 40(3)(a)(i), if the disclosure of that
information would breach any of the Data Protection Principles contained
within the DPA. In our view, providing the redacted information to you in
this case would breach the first data protection principle of the DPA as
these individuals would not expect their personal details to be made
publicly available. We are also of the view that disclosing the personal
data of the other participants is acceptable under the circumstances
because the details disclosed are already publicly available from
different sources, or the individual concerned has given their consent to
the disclosure.

Yours sincerely

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Information Commissioner's Office

3 Attachments

2nd March 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

Dear Mr Perrin

Please find attached three files containing information relating to the
category referred to as “Information relating to crime mapping in the
context of the wider Privacy and Transparency review being undertaken by
the Cabinet Office.”

The PDF file labelled “Correspondence re 's meeting with Nigel Shadbolt”
contains some redactions to third party personal data. The information
relating to other individuals is exempt from disclosure as explained in my
previous email.

The file labelled “ICO Intranet Statement - Draft and Final” contains two
draft versions and a final version of a notice which was published on
ICON, the ICO’s intranet.

The other file is labelled “Emails re Dr O'Hara's recommendations”, this
is self-explanatory.

This last file refers to a draft paper produced by Dr Kieron O’Hara on
behalf of the Cabinet Office and relates to his recommendations about the
Transparency and Privacy debate in the context of the crime mapping
initiative. Although we hold a copy of this paper, and have provided
comments in response to it, we are of the view that the exemption at
section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOIA) applies to
this information.

For information held by the ICO to be exempt under section 36 it must, in
the reasonable opinion of a qualified person (in this case the Information
Commissioner), be likely to “prejudice the effective conduct of public
affairs”. The Commissioner has reviewed all the information held that
falls within the scope of your request and has determined that section 36
is engaged in this case.

Section 36 is a qualified exemption and we must therefore consider whether
the public interest in withholding the information outweighs that in
disclosing it.

As you are aware the FOIA obliges us to respond to requests promptly and
in any case no later than 20 working days after receiving the request. 
However when a qualified exemption applies to the information and the
public interest test is engaged, section 10(3) of the FOIA allows the time
for response to be longer than the 20 working days, and a full response
must be provided within such time as is reasonable in all circumstances of
the case. 

Whilst we always aim to make all decisions within 20 working days,
including cases where we need to consider where the public interest lies
in respect of a request for exempt information, we have not yet reached a
decision on where the balance of the public interest lies in this case. 
It may take up to an additional 20 working days to take this decision.  We
therefore aim to provide you with a response to this part of your request
for information by 30 March 2011. Clearly, should we be able to respond
sooner, we will do so.

Yours sincerely

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Information Commissioner's Office

6 Attachments

2nd March 2011

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

Dear Mr Perrin

This email is the fifth part of our response to your FOI request and
concludes our response for the time being.

Please find attached a file called “Correspondence with Counsellor
Maxwell” this contains all the information we hold relating to the
category referred to as “Correspondence relating to the Windsor and
Maidenhead local public data panel discussion about crime mapping.” This
file contains some redactions to third party personal data which is exempt
from disclosure as explained previously.

Also attached are three further documents containing information relating
to “Communications relating to the Home Office and ICO press releases
regarding crime mapping”. Hopefully the file names are self-explanatory.

There are a number of documents containing information in the category of
information called “Other information containing references to crime
mapping”. As these documents are not directly relevant to your request, I
have provided extracts of the relevant sections from those documents in
the attachment called “Extracted information regarding crime mapping”. The
file called “ICO emails communicating crime mapping advice to interested
parties” is again self-explanatory. Once again, some third party personal
data has been redacted as it is exempt under section 40(2) of the FOIA as
explained earlier. There is also a section of information that has been
redacted because it relates to other matters and is not relevant to your
request.

We are unable, currently, to provide you with any of the information
relating to the final two categories listed in the first part of this
response, namely “Correspondence between the ICO and the Home Office” and
“Internal ICO correspondence” because the Information Commissioner has
determined that section 36 of the FOIA is engaged when considering whether
this information should be released.

As previously explained, section 36 is a qualified exemption, subject to
consideration as to whether the public interest in withholding the
information outweighs that in disclosing it.

As explained in part 4 of our response we aim to provide you with a
response to this part of your request for information by 30 March 2011.

We have dealt with your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. I hope that this response provides you with the
information you require.  However, if you are dissatisfied with this
response and wish to request a review of our decision or make a complaint
about how your request has been handled you should write to the at the
address below or e-mail [1][email address]

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response.  Any such request
received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the
Commissioner.

 

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint
handler under the legislation.  To make such an application, please write
to the Case Reception Team, at the address given below or visit the
‘Complaints’ section of our website to make a Freedom of Information Act
or Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

 

A copy of our review procedure is attached.

 

Yours sincerely

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

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Information Commissioner's Office

4 Attachments

Link: [1]File-List

30 March 2011

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0372603

 

Dear Mr Perrin

 

I write further to my emails of 2 March 2011 in which we provided a
partial response to your request for information. We provided most of the
information that falls within the scope of your request in our previous
response, but withheld some of the information relevant to your request,
relying on the exemption at section 36 of the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (the FOIA). This email concludes our response to your request.

 

The information we withheld previously consists of:

 

• Dr Kieron O Hara s recommendations about the Transparency and Privacy
debate in the context of the crime mapping initiative which he
produced on behalf of the Cabinet Office.
• Correspondence between the ICO and the Home Office.
• Internal ICO correspondence.

 

We also explained that for information held by the ICO to be exempt under
section 36 it must, in the reasonable opinion of a qualified person (in
this case the Information Commissioner), be likely to prejudice the
effective conduct of public affairs . The Commissioner has determined that
section 36 is engaged in this case.

 

Section 36 is a qualified exemption and we must therefore consider whether
the public interest in withholding the information outweighs that in
disclosing it.

 

Having considered, in more detail, the information that was previously
withheld, we have determined that the public interest favours the
disclosure of the correspondence between the ICO and the Home Office and
the internal ICO correspondence. Therefore please find attached three PDF
files containing this information. Please be aware that there is some
duplication of information in these files owing to the fact that a number
of email chains were sent to different recipients and they provided
separate responses. 

 

You will note that some information has been redacted (blacked out) from
the correspondence provided. The information at the start of the file
called Internal ICO Correspondence re Crime Mapping (Part 1) has been
redacted because it pertains to an email sent in connection with preparing
the response to your request and does not contain any information relevant
to it. The remainder of the redacted information constitutes the personal
data of third party individuals and is therefore exempt under Section
40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) by virtue of Section
40(3)(a)(i). 

 

Section 40(2) allows a public authority to withhold information from a
response to a request when the information requested is personal data
relating to someone other than the requestor and either the first or
second condition in Section 40(3) is satisfied.  In this instance the
disclosure would satisfy Section 40(3)(a)(i) as to disclose such
information would contravene one of the Data Protection principles.

 

We consider that such a disclosure would be unfair on the basis that the
individuals concerned would not expect these personal details to be made
public. It would therefore be in breach of the first Data Protection
principle which states that Personal data shall be processed fairly and
lawfully .

 

The other information subject to the section 36 exemption is Dr O Hara s
paper mentioned above and our response to it. We have considered the
public interest factors in respect of this information and, at this time,
we have decided that the public interest in withholding the information
outweighs the public interest in disclosing it.

 

The public interest factors in favour of disclosing this information are:

 

• Increased clarity of the debate about privacy concerns in relation to
the governments transparency agenda in the context of crime data.

 

Public interest factors in favour of withholding the requested information
are:

 

• The Cabinet Office intends to publish this information in line with
the governments transparency agenda in due course; however we are
advised that it is not yet ready for publication.
• The ICO was provided with this information in the light of its role in
contributing its views and opinions about the privacy implications of
the release of Crime data. If we were to publish this information
prior to its release by the Cabinet Office, then the Cabinet Office
and other public authorities might not fully engage the ICO in future
initiatives that have privacy implications and on which we should be
consulted. 

 

Having considered all of these factors, we have decided that the public
interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in
disclosing it. Our primary concern in this case is that premature release
of the withheld information would be likely to inhibit other public
authorities from properly consulting with the ICO. For this reason, the
information has been withheld under section 36(2)(c)

 

I hope you find the information provided useful, however if you are
dissatisfied with the response you have received and wish to request a
review of our decision or make a complaint about how your request has been
handled you should write to the Internal Compliance Department at the
address below or e-mail [2][email address]

 

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response.  Any such request
received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the
Commissioner.

 

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint
handler under the legislation.  To make such an application, please write
to the Case Reception Team, at the address below or visit the Complaints
section of our website to make a Freedom of Information Act or
Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

 

A copy of our review procedure is attached.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Andrew Rose

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

 

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

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