Warrant Cards
Dear Ministry of Defence Police,
I read with interest your response to FOI request 2015/09334 and note that in this case you applied the Section 31 Law Enforcement exemption after carrying out a public interest test.
You did however fail to include any rationale in favour of disclosing the information, instead only a rationale in favour of opposing release was included namely:
"Section 31 (Law Enforcement) applies because releasing the style and design of the current Ministry of Defence Police Warrant Card would better facilitate criminals or others to produce a replica card, which could be used in ways that would be likely to be prejudicial to law enforcement."
I would like to request the release of the information requested in FOI request 2015/09334
(A sample of a Police officer's warrant card. A sample of a PCSO's warrant card.)
It would appear from the response given that you failed to consider that NOT releasing the information requested would also "better facilitate criminals or others" as any member of the public wouldn't know what an MOD Police warrant card SHOULD look like so criminals and others could simply create a card of any appearance with the word 'police' and a photo and pass it off as an MOD police warrant card.
Essentially there is a catch 22 situation, if you release the information then criminals could use that information to create a fake MOD police warrant card however if you don't release the information then people shown an MOD warrant card are unable to validate it's authenticity as they don't know what it is meant to look like.
My understanding of the FOI act suggests that in a situation where there are balanced factors for/against disclosure then the authority should favour disclosure.
Yours faithfully,
Lee K Jasper
Dear Mr Jasper,
Your request has been logged under our reference 2015/11055 and the target date for response is 06 Jan 2016
Yours sincerely
Information Rights team
Ministry of Defence
Dear Mr Jasper,
Please see attached.
Regards
Ron Harney
Data Protection Officer & Freedom of Information Manager
MDP Secretariat
Military: 94667 4399
Civilian: 01371 854399
Fax: 01371 854080
Email: [1][email address]
or [2][email address]
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