Drones 972/2023
FOI Reference: 972/2023
Request:
- Does your Digital Forensics department have the ability to analyse and process evidence from Drones?
- If not, is this work sent to a 3rd Party?
- Can you give any example of types of illegal activity that drones have been seized / analysed for evidence within your Police service?
- In 2022, how many reports did you have of incidents involving drones?
Response:
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
I can confirm that the cost of determining whether any information relative to question 4 of this request is or isn’t held is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond therefore we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12 (2) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.
Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires Dyfed Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. The following exemption has been applied to the whole of the information you have requested:
Section 12(2) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit
Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”
The cost of determining what information is held, if any, relevant to question 4 of your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the “appropriate level” as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. It is estimated that it would exceed 18 hours (i.e. minimum of 2,422.00 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @ www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244
The Freedom of Information department has been advised that the information in respect of question 4 of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format as there is no incident category relating specifically to drones and we are unable to complete keyword searches due to law enforcement issues. Therefore, in order to establish what information, if any, is held in relation to question 4 of the request would require the individual interrogation of all incidents under the categories of ‘ASB & Suspicious’ over the time frame specified to identify if the incident in question related to a drone. It has been established that for the period as specified within the request (i.e. 2022) there are a total of 14,532 relevant incidents that would require researching. It has been estimated that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to research/review a single incident for relevance to question 4 of your request as outlined above, resulting in the following broken down time estimate.
2022 = 14,532 incidents at 10 minutes per incident = 2,422.00 hours
Total of 2,422.00 hours to complete task and the whole of the request
Please note: A response to questions 1 – 3 can be provided within the 18 hour time limit. However, Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for the WHOLE of this request under Section 17(5) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or section 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact. You may wish to refine and resubmit your request so that it reduces the time shown above to fall within the 18 hours, however with due regard to the time estimate provided above it is unlikely that refining your request will fall under the 18 hours as the same method and format will have to be undertaken. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact the Freedom of Information Unit.
(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 07/05/24)