Solved Crimes Using Digital Forensic/Other Forensic Method

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Keywords

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Publication Number

PUB 1338

FOI Reference Number

16439

Request Title

Solved Crimes Using Digital Forensic/Other Forensic Methods 2016 & 2020

Date Range

01/01/2016 to 31/12/2016

01/01/2020 to 31/12/2020

Information Requested

1. How many solved crimes in 2016 involved the use of digital forensic methods and how many involved the use of other forensic methods?

2. How many solved crimes in 2020 involved the use of digital forensic methods and how many involved the use of other forensic methods?

Disclosure with Exemptions

Full Refusal under Section 12(1)

Information Correct as at

16/12/2021

Date of Disclosure

16/12/2021

FOI 16439 Response

Having completed enquiries within Essex Police in respect of Section 1(1)(a), Essex Police does hold information relating to your request, however, the obligation of Section 1(1)(b) cannot be met as Essex Police does not hold all the information requested in a format that allows it to be retrieved within the time and cost limits of FOI.

When responding to a request for information under the terms of the FOIA, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if the authority estimates that the cost of the retrieval of the information requested would be in excess of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work). The costs criteria relates to a request in its entirety, which means that if we cannot retrieve all of the information requested within the costs limit, we are not obliged to retrieve any of the information requested.

Section 12(1) of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged to:

“…comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The following explanation outlines the difficulty Essex Police has in answering your request:

Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request from our current systems. Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses. To respond to this request would entail a manual review of solved crimes and interpretation of whether forensic evidence was actively used within that investigation or was not required. Traditional forensic evidence recovered from crime scenes is extensive and can include glass, fibres, footwear marks etc, as well as fingerprints and DNA, but most of this may be evaluated outside of an investigation at an early stage and so could skew any meaningful data to the request set by the Applicant. Essex Police Digital Forensic leads have also confirmed the same position that they do not hold this data and are not advised of outcomes in court.

This would therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.

Consequently and to this extent, Essex Police are exempt from the duty to provide information you have requested under the provisions of Section 12(1) of the FOIA. Therefore, and in accordance with Section 17(1) of the FOIA, this communication must act as a refusal notice to provide all of the information that could be interpreted as being captured by this part of your request.

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