Abortion arrest 896/2023
FOI Reference: 896/2023
Request:
Could you please supply details on how many people have been arrested on suspicion of any of the following offences between 2019 and 2023:
- Administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion (s. 58 OAPA 1861)
- Procuring drugs etc to induce an abortion (s. 59 OAPA 1861)
- Child Destruction (s1. Infant Life Preservation Act 1929)
Please break the figures down by year.
a) Please provide the sex of the person arrested.
b) Please provide the age of the person arrested.
c) Please indicate whether they were charged.
d) Please provide a brief description of the offence, where possible.
Response 1 & 2:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.
These offences would have come under one umbrella code of “Procuring an Illegal Abortion”. There were none recorded within the timescale requested.
Response 3:
I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, as outlined below.
|
2019 |
0 |
|
2020 |
0 |
|
2021 |
1 |
|
2022 |
0 |
|
2023 |
0 |
- a) Male
- b) Section 40(2) exemption applied (please see the end of the document for an explanation of the applied exemption)
- c) No further action
- d) Section 40(2) exemption applied (please see the end of the document for an explanation of the applied exemption)
Explanation of the applied exemption:
Section 40(2) Personal Information
Section 40(2) is a class-based absolute exemption. This means that the legislators when writing the legislation considered that the release of such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would cause harm to the public authority or individual concerned. There is therefore no requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information. There is also no requirement to carry out a Public Interest Test.
Section 40(2) Personal Information:
Section 40(2) applies to third party personal data and is exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 if disclosure, in relation to data subject to law enforcement processing, would breach any of the data protection principles contained within Part 3 - Chapter 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Under Section 34 within Chapter 2 “The Controller in relation to personal data is responsible for and must be able to demonstrate, compliance with” Chapter 2. Such information would not be released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 unless there is a strong public interest. One of the main differences between the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act 2018 is that any information released under FOI is released into the public domain, not just the individual requesting the information and disclosure under the Act must be made with that in mind. As such, any release that identifies an individual through releasing their personal data, even third-party personal data is exempt.
Personal data is defined under Section 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 as:
“(2) ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual (subject to subsection (14)(c)).
(3) ‘Identifiable living individual’ means a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to—
(a) An identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data or an online identifier, or
(b) One or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.”
All members of the public including those employed by the force have an intrinsic right to privacy and these rights are protected by virtue of the Human Rights Act, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and a public authority must not interfere with that right. Any release of the information subject to the exemption is likely to compromise those rights.
Data Protection Act 2018
Part 3 – Law Enforcement – Chapter 2 Principles Section 35
The first data protection principle:
“(1) The first data protection principle is that the processing of personal data for any of the law enforcement purposes must be lawful and fair.”
General Data Protection Regulation
Article 5 of the GDPR – ‘Principles relating to processing of personal data’ provides:
“1. ‘Personal data’ shall be
- Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency);
- Collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest…
- The controller shall be responsible for, and be able to demonstrate compliance with, paragraph 1 (‘accountability’).”
Dyfed-Powys Police would not want to disclose any information that could potentially identify an individual. In this particular case, to release a breakdown of age and details of how the incident occurred could provide very personal information, especially taking into consideration that there is only one incident recorded, it could lead to the identification of the individuals involved and to release such information would be a direct breach of Data Protection legislation. Therefore, as a consequence I am satisfied that Section 40(2) Personal Information exemption is applicable to the release of the information.
The Section 40 exemption is a class-based exemption. This means that the legislators when writing the legislation considered that the release of such information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would cause harm to the public authority or individual concerned. There is therefore no requirement to carry out a HARM Test in respect of such information.
The Section 40 exemption is in part qualified and in part absolute, in the present case it would be absolute as to release the information would breach Data Protection legislation and therefore there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test.
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 14/05/2024)