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25th February 2010

Case Reference Number IRQ0298394

Dear Mr John

Request for Information

Thank you for your e-mail of 24 February 2010 in which you have asked us
to provide you with “… a redacted version of the Operation Motorman
spreadsheets.”. 

Your request has been passed to the Internal Compliance Team, and is being
dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 under
the reference number shown above.  We will therefore respond to your
request by 24 March 2010, which is 20 working days from the day after we
received your request.

Should you wish to reply to this e-mail please be careful not to amend the
information in the ‘subject’ field. This will ensure that your reply
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

Antonia Swann

Assistant Internal Compliance Manager

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Tel: 01625 545894

[2]www.ico.gov.uk

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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24^th March 2010

Case Reference Number IRQ0298391

Dear Mr John

Request for Information

Further to my acknowledgement of 25 February 2010 we are now in a position
to provide you with a response to your request for information dated 24
February 2010, which you submitted via the ‘What Do They Know?’
website.

In your e-mail of 24 February you have referred to the ledgers of invoices
used as evidence in Operation Motorman, which are held by the ICO in
electronic format, and have asked us to provide you with “…a redacted
version of the Operation Motorman spreadsheets”.

It may help if I explain that the original information relating to
Operation Motorman is held in manual paper records, but this information
has since been converted into 13 separate excel spreadsheets which are now
held in an xls format.  For security reasons that information can only be
disclosed in pdf format, so the files have been converted accordingly, but
they do still meet with your request for electronic copies of the
information we hold.

I have attached a copy of the list of headings used in each of the 13
spreadsheets.  Although the headings are visible within each of the files
they are spread out amongst the pages, so the lists help to clarify the
information which has been recorded in the original manual and subsequent
electronic files.  In addition, following the conversion of the files
from xls to pdf some of the pages appear blank, with no information
recorded.  This is due to the redactions which have been made, notably of
entire columns of information such as the subjects personal details.  The
blank pages have been left in the final documents to ensure you are
provided with a complete copy. 

Also, as some of the 13 files contain 1000’s of separate records and are
therefore particularly large I am sending them to you in separate
instalments, under separate e-mails. 

Although you have asked for redacted versions of all the Operation
Motorman spreadsheets, further to your interest in the invoices that were
used as evidence you will see from the lists of headings and the pdf files
only four contain information relating to the cost of the searches carried
out.  These are ‘JJ Services Invoices 1’, ‘JJ Services Invoices
2’, ‘PS30 1’ and ‘RP9, RP15, DS3, DS2’.

As you have anticipated, we have taken the decision to remove, or redact,
the personal data of most of the individuals specifically listed or
referred to in the 13 files in order to protect their identities.

These redactions have been made in accordance with Section 40(2) of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), by virtue of section 40(3)(a)(i),
which allows a public authority to withhold information from a response to
a request under the FOIA when the information requested is personal data
relating to someone other than the requestor, and its disclosure would
contravene one of the Data Protection principles.

In the case of Operation Motorman the personal data we hold has been used
and retained in connection with the Information Commissioner’s
regulatory functions under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), and
specifically the need to retain the evidence of criminal offences being
committed under the DPA, notably section 55, which relates to the unlawful
obtaining of personal data. 

We take the view that it is reasonable to assume that those individuals
whose details were recorded in connection with Operation Motorman could
not have anticipated or expected their details to be made public in
providing a response to an information request under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).  We believe this is the case whether they
have been the subject of an enquiry, a journalist or an ‘information
getter’.  Therefore, we consider that such a disclosure would be unfair
and in breach of the first Data Protection principle which states that
“Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully …”. 

The exception to this is that information which we hold relating to
Stephen Whittamore, John Boyall, Alan King and Paul Marshall.  This is
because all these individuals have been found guilty of offences relating
to Operation Motorman, and as such their names are already in the public
domain.  Specifically, all four pleaded guilty at Blackfriars Crown Court
on 15 April 2005 in relation to offences linked to the unlawful trade in
personal information. Marshall and King pleaded guilty to conspiracy to
commit misconduct in a public office, the sale of information from police
databases. Whittamore and Boyall pleaded guilty to charges in relation to
section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Further redactions have also been made of information which could help to
identify an individual, such as date of birth, addresses, telephone
numbers, vehicle details, small companies (ie possible sole traders or
partnerships) and newspaper headlines.  These redactions have also been
made in reliance on section 40(2) of the FOIA, for the same reasons as
given above.

I hope that this 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 Internal Compliance Team 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

Antonia Swann

Assistant Internal Compliance Manager

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Tel: 01625 545894

[3]www.ico.gov.uk

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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25th March 2010

Case Reference Number IRQ0298391

Dear Mr John

Request for Review

Thank you for your e-mail of 24 March 2010, in which you have asked for a
review of our response to your information request, provided under our
reference IRQ0298391.  You have indicated that the information provided
in the pdf format is unacceptable, as much of the data provided is
illegible. Your request will be dealt with in accordance with our review
procedure, and as such we will respond by 22 April 2010, which is 20
working days from the date we received your e-mail.

In the meantime we will consider your suggestion that the original xls
files could be converted into csv or xml formats instead.  We will also
get back to you on this point by 22 April 2010.

Yours sincerely

Antonia Swann

Assistant Internal Compliance Manager

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Tel: 01625 545894

[2]www.ico.gov.uk

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Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545 700 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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Dear Mr John

I am writing in response to your email of 24 March 2010, in which you
requested an internal review of our handling of your FOI request for a
redacted version of the ‘Operation Motorman’ spreadsheets. On 24 March
we had provided you with 13 large spreadsheets in .pdf format, from which
had been redacted the personal information of the subjects. We also
provided a list of the headings used in each of the spreadsheets.

You stated in your request for a review that the format provided was
unacceptable as the data was largely illegible, and you suggested other
ways to save the data which would not present this problem. We do
appreciate that the format provided was far from ideal in terms of
legibility, but the security issues were our major concern, and you will
know from our 25 March response that we have been working with our IT
department to assess whether your suggestions were workable or whether
there would still be any issues with regard to security. You will also
know that we plan to respond to you on this separately.

My own role here is to review whether the actions we have taken so far
have been correct in terms of compliance with the FOI Act. You will know I
imagine that section 11(1)(a) of the Act allows an individual to specify
at the time of making the request the form in which a copy is provided,
and that the public authority should provide the requested information in
that form unless it is not ‘reasonably practicable’ to do so. Our
interpretation of this part of the Act is that it does include the
provision of information in electronic form; a parliamentary debate on a
proposed amendment to the FOI Bill in 2000 made it clear that the purpose
of the clause which eventually became section 1(1)(a) was to ensure
applicants would be entitled to electronic information rather than just
hard copy (Hansard HoL 17^th October 2000: Column 1007 onwards). In your
original request, you specified your preference for an electronic format,
and that was what we provided you with on 24 March. To that extent we
consider that it is clear we have complied with the requirements of
section 11. 

However the question then remains as to whether or not an individual has
the right to specify a particular type of electronic format, such as a CSV
or XML file. Our view is that there is a distinction between the form in
which a piece of information is communicated, e.g. an electronic form, and
how the data is arranged within that form, i.e. the specific software
format. In short although an applicant can ask for an electronic copy they
are not entitled to specify down to the next level, the specific software
format. As a consequence, I consider firstly that we dealt correctly with
your request of 24 February by providing you with the information
electronically, even though there were then some issues regarding how easy
it was to read the files, and secondly that the Act does not entitle you
to a specific software format. However as you know we are still trying to
accommodate your wishes in this respect, and I believe one of my
colleagues will shortly be in touch with you. 

If you remain unhappy with this outcome then you do have a right of appeal
to the ICO in our capacity as the statutory regulator for the FOI Act. If
you wish to appeal, then please visit the ‘Complaints’ section of our
website to make a complaint online, or alternatively please contact the
Case Reception Unit directly, at our head office in Wilmslow.

Yours sincerely

Anne Jones

Assistant Commissioner

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Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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16th April 2010

Case Reference Number RCC0303695

Dear Mr John

Request for Review

Further to Anne Jones’ e-mail of 15 April 2010, and your follow up
reply, she has concluded that our previous response to your original
request for information was compliant with the requirements of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.  As she has indicated if you remain dissatisfied
with the position we have taken then you do have the option of submitting
a complaint to the ICO in accordance with section 50 of the Act.

As you know we have looked into the feasibility of converting the original
13 redacted Operation Motorman electronic files from XLS files into either
CSV or XML files, further to your request of 24 March. 

I am pleased to confirm that we have now been able to convert the files
into your preferred format of CSV.  Therefore, please find attached the
first CSV file, whilst as before the other 12 files will be sent
separately. 

I should mention that due to the conversion from XLS to CSV some of the
dates within the files appear to have been replaced with a series of #
marks.  I have been advised that if you open the files in Excel the
relevant columns can be widened and the correct dates should then
appear.  Alternatively the files can be opened in Notepad format, and
again the correct dates should appear.  We do apologise for any
inconvenience this causes.

This now concludes our handling of your original request for information
dated 24 February 2010 and your subsequent request for a review dated 24
March 2010.

As has been explained to you previously, if you remain dissatisfied with
this response you can make a further complaint to the Case Reception Team
at the ICO, in accordance with section 50 of the Freedom of Information
Act 2000. 

Yours sincerely

Antonia Swann

Assistant Internal Compliance Manager

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Tel: 01625 545894

[2]www.ico.gov.uk

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Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

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