[Requester]:
Question 2: From 2009-Today, how many warrants have you obtained to search a premises?
Question 4: How many working TV Detector Vans are currently used by the BBC?
BBC response:
"I am withholding this information ... because it would provide information of use to those seeking to evade and/or assist others in evading paying the licence fee".
Watchkeeper's comment:
If there were thousands of TV detector vans and thousands of search warrants, I would be very wary of evading. That information would be of no use to me in my evading. The opposite must be true - I can safely evade if the number of detector vans and search warrants is vanishingly small. That is the information which would be of use, and which the BBC is understandably withholding.

[Requester]
Question 3: Please list the equipment that you use to detect TV Signals coming from a persons TV.
BBC response:
"I can confirm that TV Licensing has a fleet of detector vans and our enforcement officers have access to hand-held detection devices capable of detecting a TV within 20 seconds".
Watchkeeper's comment:
In an application for a search warrant, Chris Christophorou wrote "When the detector CAMERA was pointed at the window of the Premises ..." There is your "detector" - a camera recording the flickering light from a screen. A concerned father has reported a gentleman with binoculars peering into a child's bedroom, and binoculars would certainly detect the light from a TV within 20 seconds.

In a Decision Notice from the Information Commissioner's Office (FS50154106) we have -
"The BBC went on to explain that detection equipment is complex to deploy as its use is strictly governed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (British Broadcasting Corporation) Order 2001. RIPA and the Order outline how the relevant investigatory powers are to be used by the BBC and ensure compliance with human rights."

Detection must be authorised by the head of sales or head of marketing within the Television Licence Management Unit of the British Broadcasting Corporation, or anyone senior to them. It cannot be deployed on a whim or routinely.

Further:

"... the BBC believes that a significant number of people would decide not to pay their licence fee, knowing how the deployment and effectiveness of vans and other equipment will affect their chances of success in avoiding detection".

If a significant number of people would decide NOT to pay their licence fee because they knew how effective the equipment is, the only rational conclusion is that the equipment is NOT effective. This confirms what was written above.

Thank you for that.

I understand that the BBC tactics are not professional as they seem.

I just wanted them to admit it.

Thanks for the annotation.

The BBC is too scared to release the information you've requested as detector vans are nothing more than 2 employees of Crapita taking pictures of 9 year old girls' bedrooms. Which is okay, because RIPA and some overpaid scumbag at the BBC says so.

Don't hold your breath for this one!

Thank you

I have made a complaint to the ICO.
They have acknowledged the complaint.

You've gone to the ICO too quickly [Requester].
Your complaint is ineligible for ICO investigation, as you have not awaited the outcome of the BBC's own review. The ICO will reject your request on this procedural error.

Edit: Ignore my last.
I was being a tool.

The BBC have given me a Internal Review. But I am not satisfied with it.

Question 3: Please list the equipment that you use to detect TV Signals coming from a persons TV.

I can confirm that TV Licensing has a fleet of detector vans and our enforcement officers have access to
hand-held detection devices capable of detecting a TV within 20 seconds.

I have in my possession an email sent by Alison Robers today 6/12/12. I quote...

"I should explain that the use of detection equipment is not aimed at locating television equipment."

The BBC's arse and Capitas elbow don't know how to differenciate eachother!