254/24 Webcam Blackmail

                                                         OFFICIAL

 

FOI Reference: 254/2024

 

Request:

 

Under the Freedom of Information Act, could you provide me with the number of blackmail crimes, in each of the past three financial years (April 1 to March 31 - 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23) and the current financial year to date (April 1 2023 to date), where a webcam has been involved in some way, i.e. where either webcam, web cam, video or social media are mentioned in the summary of the report.

 

Could you provide a summary of each report, including outcome, and state whether the alleged victim was aged under 16, 16 to 18 or over 18.

 

Please could you also provide me with a count of the number of crimes recorded as threatening to/disclosing private images in each of the past three financial years (April 1 to March 31 - 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23) and the current financial year to date (April 1 2023 to date). Again, please provide information about outcomes for these and a breakdown by whether the alleged victim was aged under 16, 16 to 18 or over 18.

 

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 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 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 81 hours) to comply with your request. The regulations can be located @

www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043244.htm

 

The Freedom of Information Department has been advised that the information in relation to the whole request is not held in an easily retrievable format. This is due to the fact that with our current crime recording system, we would have to manually review each blackmail offence record to ascertain if there a webcam was involved.

 

Therefore, in order to ascertain if there is any information relevant to your request, every blackmail offence record created during the timeframe specified would require interrogation.

 

It has been established that there are a total of 976 blackmail offences recorded that would require individual interrogation and it has been estimated that it would take an average of 10 minutes to research each individual record. The relevant time estimate is detailed below:

 

2020/2021: 127 records x 5mins = 10.6 hours 2021/2022: 223 records x 5mins = 18.6 hours

2022/2023: 327 records x 5mins =  27.25 hours

2023/2024 (up to 4/3/24): 299 records x 5mins = 24.9 hours

 

Time estimated for whole request = 81.3 hours

 

 

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. Should you require any further advice in relation to this matter please don’t hesitate to contact me.

 

Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the Force’s right to cite exemptions if relevant.

 

 

                                                                                                           

 

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

Furthermore, it should also be noted that Police forces in the United Kingdom are routinely required to provide crime statistics to government bodies and the recording criteria is set nationally. However, the systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the crime data. It should be noted that for these reasons this force's response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other response you may receive.

 

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 15/03/ 2024)