Redaction policy / information and delegation of authority
Dear Independent Office for Police Conduct,
Please provide any information held which details your redaction of information policy or procedure in respect to data released under SAR.
Specifically to include which department or individual members of staff, by position, are responsible for undertaking any redaction of information and any information provided to them to allow them to undertake this activity lawfully.
Please also identify where that instruction originated and the name or position of the person responsible for ensuring the activity has been carried out correctly in each case IE the DPO.
In respect to reference 1008965, within that disclosure was a document dated 24 Dec 2020 with the reference 1008877 bearing the signature block for Mr Brett Gerrard, Head of Assessment Unit, IOPC but which bore the signature PP. C Wilson, referring to Caroline Wilson Senior FOI and DPA advisor.
PP stands for per prōcūratiōnem which is usually translated as "by delegation to" .
My concern arises as Mr Gerrard is the head of the IOPC assessment unit and my FOIA request applied to information held regarding what actually constitutes sufficient corruption within a police force to require the IOPC to investigate.
Ms Wilson deals with FOI and DPA requests and therefore has little to do with the assessment unit processes and I do not know which of them is responsible for which portion of the content of that letter.
Please therefore provide any records detailing exactly what authority and or duties Mr Gerrard delegated to Ms Wilson, and when that delegation occurred and any time limit placed upon it.
Please also identify from that letter which portions originated from Mr Gerrard and which portions from Ms Wilson.
I tried to telephone the information rights department today to ask these questions but yet again the call handlers on the switchboard do not have FOI or DPA reference numbers available on their system and they refused to transfer the call to have these queries addressed.
Yours faithfully,
W Hunter
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Dear W Hunter
Thank you for your correspondence to the IOPC in which you made a request for information. This request is being considered under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). We will now consult with the relevant department to gather the response to your request.
We propose to respond to you on or before the 26 March 2021 in line with the timescales prescribed by the FOIA.
While we are aiming to complete your request within that timeframe, it is possible that our response will be delayed as a result of our current working arrangements under the COVID-19 outbreak. We will keep you updated should we be unable to respond by the due date.
If you have any questions about this request please contact us. Please remember to quote reference number 1009060 in any future correspondence about this matter.
Yours sincerely
FOI and DPA Team
Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)
PO Box 473
Sale
Manchester
M33 0BW
Tel: 0300 020 0096
www.policeconduct.gov.uk
Follow us on Twitter at: @policeconduct
Find out how we handle your personal data.
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We now regularly publish practical advice and guidance for handling complaints in our magazine FOCUS
Dear W Hunter
Please find attached our response to your request for information.
Yours sincerely
FOI and DPA Team
Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)
PO Box 473
Sale
Manchester
M33 0BW
Tel: 0300 020 0096
www.policeconduct.gov.uk
Follow us on Twitter at: @policeconduct
Find out how we handle your personal data.
The IOPC is proud to have achieved Customer Service Excellence accreditation
We now regularly publish practical advice and guidance for handling complaints in our magazine FOCUS
Dear Ms Thomas
Your response is apparently stating that your organisation operates a redaction policy of only redacting information that "does not constitute the personal data of a requester; or that constitutes the personal data of a requester but engages an exemption as outlined in Schedules 2 and 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018. We consider guidance provided by the Information Commissioner’s Office website when applying exemptions"
This statement appears to completely contradict the actual requirements under law which requires all information be released from records applicable to the data subject, except that which constitutes personal information relating to another data subject or other information subject to a valid exemption, as specified in section 94 (8) of the DPA.
The ico identifies personal information here https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/gui...
Using the ICOs definition of personal data the statement "Mr John Smith is an individual who travels to and from his home to the central rail station each day on his way to work" would be identified as personal information relating to Mr John Smith.
However under your definition only the words "John Smith" are personal information as none of the other words identify Mr Smith as an individual so by your definition all the other words would be redacted?
Your redaction policy does not specify that personal information relating to third parties who are not the requestor will be redacted? and even if it did, it would still not address how Mr Brett Gerrards name was included within the data release whilst brett.gerrard was redacted from the email address information immediately following his name by the alleged application of your redaction process, nor how only four digits of a telephone number came to be redacted under your policy?
Either all the digits constitute personal information or they do not, so how can your process require only the redaction of only four?
Your process. which you now claim was undertaken by an information rights officer before being quality checked by your own DPO, who you state "makes an assessment as to whether the law has been applied correctly, fairly and justly." and yet your DPO failed to notice the fact that the exact same personal information regarding an individual who was not the data subject had been left in plain sight whilst also being redacted immediately after that inclusion?
It would appear that your quality assurance process is not fit for purpose.
Your response also failed to reply to the questions asked regarding the letter and contents allegedly originating from Mr Gerrard.
You claim no authority was delegated and in this communication state that PP does not stand for the actual meaning defined by general use, instead you claim PP as used by the ICO actually means "on behalf of".
You also claim there are no records held detailing which portions of that letter are authored by Mr Gerrard and which portions were authored by Ms Wilson which I believe to be false.
Records on your IT system will show which member of staff wrote which portions of the document and if nothing else there will be a copy of the document written by Ms Wilson sent to Mr Gerrard asking him to agree the content produced by her, or a copy of the document written by Mr Gerrard being sent to Ms Wilson asking her to send it as the response on his behalf.
If there are no records of that nature then that can only mean the letter was produced completely from Ms Wilson who then applied Mr Gerrards name to the document without his knowledge and according to you without any delegated authority to do so?
The fact that the letter existed to be sent is a record, and the file information of that document will clearly show the date and time of it's storage and the author of the document stored.
I believe your response to be a deliberate attempt to commit a criminal offence under section 77 of the FOIA in that you appear to be deliberately breaching the requirement of law under both the DPA and FOIA in an attempt to pervert the Course of Justice.
Your DPO appears to be either deliberately attempting to subvert the requirements of law in this matter or staff are falsifying records to claim the DPO has undertaken duties which cannot, by the result presented, have possibly occurred if those duties had been undertaken correctly.
I will be reporting this as a formal allegation to the ICO and I am requesting an internal review and also registering a formal complaint to the IOPC regarding the failure of the IOPC DPO to comply with the statutory requirements of the role as specified by the ICO in this matter.
Yours sincerely,
W Hunter
This is an automated email please do not respond to it.
Thank you for your email.
If you have made a request for information to the IOPC, your email and any
attachments will be assessed, logged and forwarded onto the appropriate
department to prepare the response.
FOI & DPA Team
This message and its content may contain confidential, privileged or
copyright information. They are intended solely for the use of the
intended recipient. If you received this message in error, you must not
disclose, copy, distribute or take any action which relies on the
contents. Instead, please inform the sender and then permanently delete
it. Any views or opinions expressed in this communication are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the IOPC. Only
specified staff are authorised to make binding agreements on behalf of the
IOPC by email. The IOPC accepts no responsibility for unauthorised
agreements reached with other employees or agents. The IOPC cannot
guarantee the security of this email or any attachments. While emails are
regularly scanned, the IOPC cannot take any liability for any virus that
may be transmitted with the internet. The IOPC communication systems are
monitored to the extent permitted by law. Consequently, any email and or
attachments may be read by monitoring staff.
Dear Mr Hunter
Thank you for your email. We will be conducting an internal review of our original FOIA response and expect to provide you with our findings on or before 26 April 2021.
While we are aiming to complete your request within that timeframe, it is possible that our response will be delayed as a result of our current working arrangements under the COVID-19 outbreak. We will keep you updated should we be unable to respond by the due date.
If you have any further queries regarding this matter, please contact us quoting reference number IR1009060.
Yours sincerely
FOI and DPA Team
Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)
PO Box 473
Sale
Manchester
M33 0BW
Tel: 0300 020 0096
www.policeconduct.gov.uk
Follow us on Twitter at: @policeconduct
Find out how we handle your personal data.
The IOPC is proud to have achieved Customer Service Excellence accreditation
We now regularly publish practical advice and guidance for handling complaints in our magazine FOCUS
Dear W Hunter
We have reviewed your email below which you have presented as a request
for an internal review of our response to your information request. Having
reviewed your comments, we consider that this is not a complaint about our
response, rather you disagree with our methods of redaction used when
handling subject access requests and have a personal opinion regarding the
quality assurance process as outlined in our response. Nevertheless we
apologise for the delay in responding to your correspondence.
You have made reference to particular redactions made within a subject
access request response and have expressed your personal opinion that the
associated quality assurance process is not fit for purpose. Whilst it is
clear that you disagree with redactions made, and our general approach to
handling subject access requests, the most appropriate way to address your
concerns is to contact the Information Commissioner's Office. We note that
you have stated your intention to do so at the end of your email. We will
not be reviewing our response to your subject access request but will of
course co-operate with any enquiries from the Information Commissioner
should she wish to investigate your complaint further.
You have commented on our response to the second part of your information
request which was as follows:
“Please therefore provide any records detailing exactly what
authority and or duties Mr Gerrard delegated to Ms Wilson, and when that
delegation occurred and any time limit placed upon it.
Please also identify from that letter which portions originated from
Mr Gerrard and which portions from Ms Wilson.”
Your questions are based on your own interpretation of the process for
handling of FOIA requests and the fact that our letter was signed on
behalf of the signatory. They also clearly relate to correspondence that
was sent to you personally. Our response was as follows:
“No information is held in relation to this part of your request as no
delegation of authority occurred. The final disclosure was agreed by Mr
Gerrard as Information Asset Owner for the
particular business area. The letter was signed on behalf of Mr
Gerrard as his electronic signature was not available. The use of the ‘PP’
was intended to mean that the letter was signed
‘on behalf of’.
We consider that this accurately reflects the situation regarding our
response and is our standard practice when finalising FOIA responses. You
have made a further assumption that this infers that: “… that can only
mean the letter was produced completely from Ms Wilson who then applied Mr
Gerrard’s name to the document without his knowledge and according to you
without any delegated authority to do so?” This is a baseless and
unsubstantiated assumption and is incorrect. You state that you consider
this to be an attempt to commit a criminal offence under section 77 of the
FOIA and if you believe this to be the case , you should raise your
concerns with the Information Commissioner.
We have explained to you on previous occasions that the FOIA should not be
used to try to seek information to either support or disprove your own
personal interpretation of a situation or to communicate regarding
personal matters. There is also no obligation under the FOIA to answer
questions generally, express an opinion or enter into a discussion or
debate unless a question can be answered from existing records.
We will take into consideration our previous advice and communications
with you regarding these matters if you persist in trying to frame
correspondence and queries regarding personal matters as FOIA requests for
recorded information.
We trust that this explains our position.
Yours sincerely
The FOI and DPA Team
Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)
PO Box 473
Sale
Manchester
M33 0BW
Tel: 0300 020 0096
Follow us on Twitter at: @policeconduct
Find out how we handle your personal data.
The IOPC is proud to have achieved Customer Service Excellence
accreditation
We now regularly publish practical advice and guidance for handling
complaints in our magazine FOCUS
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