Recovered stolen phones 455/2025

FOI Reference: 455/2025

Request

This is a request for information about the number of stolen mobile phones that have been recovered by police. I understand that it is impossible to reunite many with their owners because many devices aren’t registered stolen or the IMEI numbers are unknown by their owner.

1. How many stolen or suspected stolen mobile phones are currently held by the force having been recovered by officers?
2. How many stolen or suspected stolen phones have been recovered by the force in the past five years? If possible it would be helpful if this data is broken down by year.
3. Of these, how many have successfully been returned to their owners?

Any relevant images of recovered devices would also be very helpful.

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.

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.

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information you have requested. However, we are withholding the whole of the requested information since we consider that the Section 12(1) exemption the Cost of Compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit applies to it.

Section 12 (1) – The cost of compliance exceeds the Appropriate Limit

Section 12(1) states: “…Section 1 (1) does not oblige a public authority 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 cost of providing you with the information requested in respect of Q2 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 4, 049 hours) to comply with this part of your request. The regulations can be located @ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244

The Freedom of Information department has been advised that the information in respect of your request is not held in an easily retrievable format. In light of this and in order to accurately obtain the information relative to Q2 of your request, for the time frame stipulated would involve Dyfed Powys Police accessing and manually reviewing 23,210 records between 2020 to 2025 (up to 24/04/2025), in order to identify mobile phone thefts as there are no ‘stolen item’ filters. Then we would have to identify whether they were recovered / returned to the victim.

It has also been established that it would take a minimum of 10 minutes to review and obtain the information for a single record in respect of your request. 

In order to accurately obtain the information relative to Q3 of your request, for 2021, 2022 & 2023(Up to 15^th May) would involve accessing data held on the Property Management System, and manually reviewing all the mobile phone entries, in order to ascertain if a phone was stolen.

The process outlined results in the below time estimate.

Q1 & Q2

Years                             No. of records

2020                 –              3655

2021                 –              3910

2022                 –              4827

2023                 –              1715 (Old IT system) + 3167 (New IT system)

2024                 –              4660

2025 (up to 24/04/2025) – 1276

Total records =  23,210

23,210 x 10 mins = 3,868 hours

Q3

2,176 entries x 5 minutes = 181 hours

Time estimate to complete task = 4,049 hours

Although excess cost removes the forces obligations under the Freedom of Information Act to provide any further information, as a gesture of goodwill, I have provided information, relative to part of question 1 & 3 of your request which has been easily retrievable and outlined below. I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of your request.

Response Q1

3

Response Q3

Please note: The data provided for 2023 will be after 15 May 2023, due to a change in the IT systems.

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

In accordance therefore 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 the Freedom of Information Unit. Please also be advised that should the request be refined, it does not remove the public authorities right to cite exemptions if relevant.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 20/05/2025)