Drone accidents or near accidents

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Gloucestershire Constabulary should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Gloucestershire Constabulary,

Have there been any drone-related accidents or near accidents in the Gloucestershire area since the start of 2018?

Yours faithfully,

Robin

FOI, Gloucestershire Constabulary

Thank you for contacting Gloucestershire Constabulary’s Freedom of
Information Team.

 

If you have submitted a request for information, please accept this as
your acknowledgment. We may be in contact to discuss your request.

 

We aim to respond to your request within the statutory time frame of 20
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who are expected to receive in excess of 1250 different requests for
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FOI, Gloucestershire Constabulary

Dear Robin,

I refer to your below request for information which has been submitted in the name of ‘Robin’.

Under section 8(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act it is a requirement that applicants provide their name when making a request for information in order for the request to be valid. The Information Commissioner's Guidance is quite clear that it was the intention of the legislation that an applicant should provide their real name so that a request can be processed in accordance with the legislation.

Please could you provide your full name so that we can ensure that all of the criteria specified in the Act have been met before your request is processed.

There is no legal requirement for Gloucestershire Constabulary to progress your request until you have supplied your name as until that time, there is no valid request.

Please find below the guidance from the ICO website as to our obligations when determining whether a request is valid or not. This information can be found on page 7 of the document under the heading The definition of a 'real name':

25. Any variation of the requester’s title or first name combined with their surname (e.g. Mr Smith or John Smith) will be sufficient to meet this requirement. However, a first name or surname provided in isolation, or a set of initials, will not.
Example
A requester named Robert Jones could call themselves ‘Rob Jones’, ‘Bobby Jones’, ‘R Jones’, ‘Bob Jones’ or ‘Mr Jones’.
However, they could not just use ‘Robert’, ‘Bob’, ‘Bobby’ or ‘R.J’.

26. A combination of the requester’s middle names and surname will also be acceptable as this is simply another way of expressing their real name.

I also provide a link to the document for your reference:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

This information can also be found in the help section of the whatdotheyknow.com website.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/priv...

"Can FOI requests be made under a pseudonym? #

Technically, you must use your real name for your request to be a valid Freedom of Information request in law. See this guidance from the Information Commissioner(October 2007). However, the same guidance also says it is good practice for the public authority to still consider a request made using an obvious pseudonym. You should refer to this if a public authority refuses a request because you used a pseudonym.

Be aware, though, that even if the authority follows this good practice, the pseudonym will probably make it impossible for you to complain to the Information Commissioner later about the handling of your request.

There are several good alternatives to using a pseudonym.
•Use a different form of your name. The guidance says that “Mr Arthur Thomas Roberts” can make a valid request as “Arthur Roberts”, “A. T. Roberts”, or “Mr Roberts”, but not as “Arthur” or “A.T.R.”. "

Yours sincerely,
Miss N Cramb
Disclosure Officer
Information Disclosure / Governance & Compliance
Gloucestershire Constabulary
1 Waterwells Drive | Quedgeley | Gloucester | GL2 2AN
Phone - 01452 754304 | Force Control Room – 101
www.gloucestershire.police.uk | Twitter page | Facebook page

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