Domestic Abuse, Harassment and Stalking guidance

Response

Please see the following documents attached:

 

• Domestic Abuse Procedural Guidance
• Stalking and Harassment intranet guidance
• Victims’ Right to Review intranet guidance

 

Within these documents, names and email addresses have been redacted and withheld under the following exemptions:

 

Section 31(1) – Law Enforcement

Section 40(2) – Personal Information

 

Section 31 is a qualified, prejudice based exemption, therefore there is a requirement to articulate the harm in disclosure and to consider the public interest.

 

Harm in Disclosure:  

To disclose email addresses and contact details used for policing purposes would release information into the public domain that could be used by those intent on disrupting police services to interrupt operational policing.

 

Factors favouring disclosure: 

To disclose direct means of communication with police departments displays transparency and accountability.

 

Factors favouring exemption: 

Disclosure of direct email addresses not intended for public use could result in teams being inundated with enquiries that do not pass through the usual route of our command-and-control system. Each enquiry received would have to be dealt with individually, which would abstract officers from their usual operational duties. In addition, those with criminal intent could use this information to cause disruption to the communication channels within organisation. This could lead to operational difficulties as resources would need to be replaced in order to manage operational demand and maintain public safety.

 

Balance Test   

As the email addresses are not intended for public use, the information would be of little use other than to those seeking to cause disruption. On balance, the harm in disclosure outweighs any public interest in releasing the information.  The decision is therefore to withhold the requested information in the interests of protecting our law enforcement capabilities.

 

Section 40 is a class based absolute exemption and there is no requirement to consider the public interest in this case.

 

Any information to which a request relates is exempt if it constitutes personal data and would contravene any of the data protection principles.  Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified directly from the information, or identifiable indirectly in combination with other available information.

 

To disclose the information would identify individuals, which would breach principle 1 (lawfulness, fairness and transparency) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

 

This serves as a partial refusal notice under Section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information Act.