How Low Can You Go? Part II.

That crowbar looks far too shiny

The topic of when simple statistical data becomes personal data has always been a topic that has caused a great deal of head scratching.

If I ask how many people in East Sussex are obese nobody would consider that to be personal data and subject to a S.40 exemption. However, if you were to ask how many adult males living at my address were obese and the answer was to be one – you’d have violated my privacy, breached the Data Protection Act and ridden rough shod across S.40. Anyhow, just for the record, I’d like to state that I’m just slightly overweight!

But nobody has really said how and when that numerical data becomes personal data. The topic has come before the Tribunal and the Commissioner before and the issue has still not really been resolved (I’ve put a series of links at the end to judgements which have focused on this point).

However, the latest judgement from the offices of the Information Commissioner [Ref: FS50161581] relates to the Greater Manchester Police (GMP). It received a request wanting to know the number of burglaries that took place in Honeysuckle Close and Tunshill Road.

To my mind the key point in this question was the number of houses in each street. In Tunshill Road there are 83 but in Honeysuckle Close there are just 13.

GMP refused to release the data saying it was subject to S.31 (law enforcement) as well as S.40 (personal information).

The S.31 argument was quickly dispensed with by the Commissioner despite some interesting arguments by GMP which included the fact that disclosure of the information might lead to more burglaries as criminals would expect the stolen property to be replaced with new goods courtesy of the insurance companies.

But the S.31 plea from GMP was rejected by the Commissioner who said “this would not present a real and significant impact on the ability of the police to prevent crime and to apprehend offenders”.

On to S.40 and the Commissioner admitted the number of properties and the number of burglaries were small in number but added “I am not persuaded that, taken together, they would allow for the identification of any individual.”

The Commissioner touches on the subject of “crime maps”, a new politically-driven idea that will allow people to look up on the internet to see what sort of crimes have been committed and where. However, he says that just because a police force picks a certain parameters for the reporting of each crime type the Commissioner, when considering individual Freedom of Information requests, does not have to be bound by the police approach.

As it would appear that 13 is considered a number not too low to allow a S.40 exemption to be applied. The key question is when does the number become too low (see my earlier post on this topic ‘How Low Can You Go?’) and would the level change if we were talking about more sensitive personal detail.

To test drive this ruling I’m asking on whatdotheyknow how many burglaries have taken place each year in Connaught Square, Westminster, to see if the arrival of the Blairs after he left No.10 and the associated police presence had any effect on the number of house raids [link].

Other judgements:

Common Service Agency v Scottish Information Commissioner [2008] UKHL 47, link

Department of Health v Information Commissioner & Pro-Life Alliance [EA/2008/0074], link

Sussex Police v Information Commissioner [EA/2009/0013], link