Some historical context to this which may assist everyone's deliberations here. As mentioned earlier in the thread there was a S7 - S29 relationship with all of this. Around 2001 / 2002 the Police were starting to receive more and more subject access request from individuals who were in the process of making an insurance claim following for example, a domestic burglary. This was because more and more insurance companies were becoming suspicious about the frequency, amount of items, or specific item values that were being claimed for. Without telling the claimant, insurance companies were approaching the police for verification and the Police refused to provide the information citing the DPA. As a result, the insurance companies insisted that their client exercised their right of subject access and requested a copy of their crime report, which included the list of items and values of the stolen property. In most cases, the insurance companies actually paid the £10. The police data protection officers / ACPO decided that as this was as a good as 'enforced subject access' - S56, which was soon to become a criminal offence (but to my knowledge this has never actually been enacted), a suitable alternative should be found. A 'Memorandum of Understanding' (MoU) was agreed between the Police and the Association of British Insurers in that £75 would be paid by the insurance company for a copy of the crime report. The application would however have the signature of the burglary victim / claimant which provided consent. The process allowed for a copy of the crime report to also be provided to the claimant / victim. The procedure worked well. Where the insurance company believed or had evidence from the start that a fraudulent claim was being made then S29 would be relied upon and the police would get involved - no charge and Sch 2/3 conditions in place. Similarly, the police may become involved at a later stage. An early tension however was that there was very often a genuine difference between what was being claimed for and what was being recorded on the police database as stolen. The Police made it clear in the MoU that only high value / significant or re-identifiable items would be recorded and that the Police database is not used as a verification service for the insurance companies. The Police at the time would however scan full lists provided by victims. Apologies for the lengthy reply, the system may have developed a little by now. So this may assist when asking the question " are the police charging etc etc . . ".
Peter Lane
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
available to the world wide web community at large at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html
If you wish to leave this list please send the command
leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
All user commands can be found at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm
Any queries about sending or receiving messages please send to the list owner
[log in to unmask]
Full help Desk - please email [log in to unmask] describing your needs
To receive these emails in HTML format send the command:
SET data-protection HTML to [log in to unmask]
(all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|