S12 & S14 conditions at protest events 1092/2025

FOI Reference: 1092/2025

Request:

Please provide the following information under the FOI Act:

1. A list of all protest events to which your force applied conditions under S12 and S14 of the Public Order Act (POA) 1986 from 1 October 2023 to date. Please break this down by:

1. Date of event
2. Event name
3. Theme/protest cause (eg Israel / Palestine, Environmental)
4. Conditions applied
5. Details of Conditions
6. Reason for conditions (Serious public disorder, serious damage to property, serious disruption to the life of the community)

Please provide this in Excel format.

2. For each event disclosed in response to Question 1 where “serious disruption to the life of the community” was among the reasons for imposing S12/S14 POA conditions, please indicate whether officers “took into account any relevant cumulative disruption”. Please indicate this in an additional column in the same Excel spreadsheet.

3. A blank copy of any template forms, checklists, or pro forma documents used by senior officers when assessing, recording or “taking into account” the cumulative disruption/impact in relation to protests.

4. Please provide a copy of any guidance, policy documents, or standard operating procedures used to assist senior officers in assessing the cumulative disruption of a protest.

If any part of this request is unclear or likely to exceed the appropriate cost limit, please contact me to offer advice and assistance in refining it.

Response 1:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, however some of the information has been withheld by virtue of Section 40(2) Personal Information.

1. 6^th April 2025
2. Red Line protest
3. Israel/Palestine
4. Section 12+14 Public Order Act 1986
5. Please see the attached document named Section 12 Notice Red Line Protest Carmarthen final draft (003) 
6. Serious disruption to the life of the community

Response 2:

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, the details of which are as follows:

• Yes, cumulative disruption was considered

Response 3 &4:

I can confirm that there is no information held/recorded by Dyfed-Powys Police in respect of these questions.

Explanation of applied exemption:

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 individuals requesting the information and disclosure under the Act must be made with that in mind. As such, any release that identifies any individuals 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 individuals (subject to subsection (14)(c)).

(3) ‘Identifiable living individuals’ means a living individuals 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 individuals.”

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 UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK-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.”

UK - General Data Protection Regulation

Article 5 of the UK-GDPR – ‘Principles relating to processing of personal data’ provides:

“1. ‘Personal data’ shall be

(a) Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency);

(b) 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…

2. 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 any individuals. In this particular case, to release the information requested would lead to the identification of and constitute the personal information of an identifiable individual. To release such information would be a direct breach of Data Protection legislation and 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 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.                                  

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 15/12/2025)