Information Commissioner's Office - Metropolitan Police Service Data Protection Register entry details

By wtwu on March 4, 2007 5:14 PM

It seems peculiar to have to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the actual Information Commissioner's Office itself, regarding one of their supposedly public systems, the Register of Data Controllers, as per the Data Protection Act.

Nevertheless, there seems to be either some bureaucratic mix up or some sort of power struggle going on regarding the currently missing Data Protection Register entry for the Metropolitan Police Service in London.

No such entry seems to exist, according to the public web search form, and, over a month ago, according to ICO office staff looking at their internal systems, including recent and pending registration requests.. It appears that there has not been such an entry for the Metropolitan Police Service, or the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, since sometime last year, which is far longer than any "pending" requests take to update the searchable database.

Every other UK regional and non-geographic Police Force has a valid entry on the Register of Data Controllers. The Metropolitan Police Authority has, like all the other Police Authorities which supervise the budgets and policies of their respective Police Forces, its own entry for its own internaluses, which do not cover the Met for the Data Purpose of Policing.

If it turns out that there is no current such valid entry for the Met, or that there has been a time gap, during which the old entry ran out and a new one was submitted, then this could have all sorts of effects on the criminal justice system, as most of the Metropolitan Police intelligence and criminal justice system databases will have been processing personal data illegally.

We doubt that the Information Commissioner will choose to prosecute the Metropolitan Police Service, in the public interest, but there could be all sorts of grounds for appeal, and some guilty criminals may escape justice as a result.

Subject: Freedom of Information Act request - Metropolitan Police Service data protection register entry details
From: [email address]
To: notification@ico.gsi.gov.uk
Cc: mail@ico.gsi.gov.uk

Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:03:10 +0000

Freedom of Information Act request

Please disclose and publish the following information:

1) Whether or not the Metropolitan Police Service or the Metropolitan Police Commissioner currently have a valid Registration entry on the Register of Data Controllers, covering the Data Purpose of Policing, i.e. the use of Metropolitan Police intelligence databases, the Police National Computer, the National DNA Database, the National Automatic Number Plate Recognition Database, the Violent and Sexual Offenders Register, the Facial Images National Database, IDENT1, Sirene and the Schengen Information System etc. where the Chief Constable is usually deemed to be the Data Controller, as is the case with every other Chief Constable in the UK.

2) Full details of any such current or pending Registration

3) Full details of the previous such Registration if there is no
current one.

4) Details of any recent discussions, emails, meetings or correspondence with the Metropolitan Police Service regarding this
issue between January 2007 and the end of February 2007.

N.B. the current Register of Data Controllers web search form does
NOT give details of any such registration, and the Information Commissioner's Office staff also failed to find one on their internal systems, over a month ago, e.g. using the word "Police" in the name field and "London" in the Address field gives:

Total Records found 16

ASSOCIATION OF POLICE AUTHORITIES LIMITED BRITISH TRANSPORT POLICE FEDERATION
CHIEF CONSTABLE BRITISH TRANSPORT POLICE
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE FOR THE CITY OF LONDON
COMMUNITY POLICE CONSULTATIVE GROUP FOR LAMBETH LTD
EALING COMMUNITY & POLICE CONSULTATIVE GROUP
INDEPENDENT POLICE COMPLAINTS COMMISSION
METROPOLITAN AND CITY POLICE ORPHANS FUND
METROPOLITAN POLICE AUTHORITY
METROPOLITAN POLICE TRADING SERVICE
POLICE NEGOTIATING BOARD
PSDS LTD
SPLASH WILTSHIRE - (SCHOOLS AND POLICE LIAISON ACTIVITIES FOR
SUMMER HOLIDAYS)
THE POLICE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ORGANISATION
WILTSHIRE CONSTABULARY POLICE FEDERATION
WILTSHIRE POLICE AUTHORITY

but *not* the actual Metropolitan Police Service themselves.

Please provide the information ideally by publishing it on your public world wide website, or alternatively by email.

Ideally this should *NOT* be in the form of a "copy and paste" locked Adobe .pdf file, or similar, attachment.

In the unlikely event that this information is not already available in a standard electronic format, then please explain the reasons why, when you provide the information in another format.

If you are proposing to make a charge for providing the information requested, please provide full details in advance, together with an explanation of any proposed charge

If you decide to withhold any of the information requested you should clearly explain why you have done so in your response, by reference to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 legislation.

If your decision to withhold is based upon an evaluation of the public interest, then you should clearly explain which public interests you have considered, and why you have decided that the public interest in maintaining the exception(s) outweighs the public interest in releasing the information.

I look forward to receiving the information requested as soon as possible, and in any event within 20 working days of receipt of
this email. i.e. by Monday 2nd April 2007

regards

[name]


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