Has it not been an offence to pay a police officer for information for
many years. Is it an offence to pay a lawyer/solicitor for similar
information?

If a person from your organisation telephones you with a
specific DP enquiry relating to s.55 offences, do you answer them on
the telephone.
If a person telephones 10 different police data
protection officers with the same enquiry and many of them respond,
will that reveal the advice police data protection officers are likely
to be giving within their forces?
How do you know the response to every
enquiry you receive is to be used within your organisation?

Most
police data protection officers used to be civilian. In this cash
strapped time I suspect that continues to be the case but would a data
protection officer who provided advice on the telephone in the above
circumstances be guilty of a s.55 offence?

Having been through this
type of situation a few times it became apparent that both the police
and the legal system generally used information to suit their own
purposes (to produce a legal outcome which reflected an organisational
political need). This sometimes created what appeared as an obvious
disjunction between justice seen to be done to members of the public
and the justice seen to be done to police officers, but it did often
reflect those circumstances where other organisations would have hidden
an offence and not actually have taken any action anyway, so one could
say they were social responses to criminal acts rather than legal ones.
(Have deliberately not mentioned ethical issues involved in those
situations) My observations were that considering the outcomes and
potential defences to particular charges often determined the charge
laid as much as any consideration of the evidence or context of an
offence. One to remember is that unless a conviction continues to stand
after the appeals process, the original charges or evidence were
clearly in error, but the legal process will have exacted its toll.


Beyond enquiries to find information relating to the opponents
position/approach there were more obvious ploys where enquiries
appeared out of the ether which clearly seemed attempts to create
evidence of a particular set of actions, or evidence was lost from
within a file whilst with a legal team. But perhaps those were merely
accidents in time and not actions of unions/employee
organisations/legal teams/members of management/consultants/friends of
the accused.

It has somewhat surprised me over the years that similar
attempts to elicit information about an opponents legal process, by
persons involved in the process, by devious means, has not come more to
the fore. The use of subject access in that process was frowned upon,
but was at least a reasonably public method which made the actions more
visible.

S.55 would appear to cover it, as would Computer Misuse. The
main difficulties previously were the lack of evidence or audit trails,
but could that be beginning to change as evidenced by the case in
question? If so the number of what were previously seen as white collar
type crimes is surely ready to rise again.

The internal
investigation/process exemptions to disclosure do covered some of the
area.

Ian W

N.B. I am now reliably back on-line. The problem was a
corroding cable between the bottom of the telephone pole and the
junction box at the top which eventually cut me off completely.
Thankfully BT found it quickly after they arrived. If this arrives via
the data-protection list the other problem has also been sorted.




-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in
Data Protection issues [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Lawrence Serewicz
Sent: 23 May 2012 12:33
To: data-
[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [data-protection] DWP Staff and
Personal Data [wider question on obtaining information from the police]


Dear All,
I do not know if you have been following this story, but I
was wondering what the s.55 implications would be for the claims that
have been made regarding the allegations of police being paid by
private investigators for information.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/22/metropolitan-police-anti-corruption-allegations
 
Readers will note that this has a familiar theme to the Flood v.
Times Newspapers (the Times lost the case for defaming Flood. The
Times had relied on the Reynolds Defence.) [2009] EWHC 2375 (QB),
[2010] EMLR 8
 
At the heart of each case is the claim that the police
were selling something (either services or information) to parties
interested in or involved in the case.
 
If such a case were proved,
would there be a s.55 element to the disclosure of the information? Or
would it be more likely that the CPS would bring Misconduct in Public
Office offence or a perverting the course of justice claim? Would the
s.55 only apply to the police while the private investigator or the
information broker supplying the private investigator would be punished
by some other offence?
 
Perhaps what is needed is a way to make it
easier to prove a s.55 offence rather than making it a custodial
sentence?
 
What struck a chord with me was the final statement from
the company in question.
“Keith Hunter, chief executive of the company,
said: "RISC management does not need to pay serving police officers for
confidential information as we pride ourselves on our ability to
provide positive solutions and accurate information legitimately. RISC
Management has a highly respected reputation for conducting
professional investigations".
He added that his company was "proud to
have a network of highly professional consultants, contacts and
resources. These individuals are hired precisely because of their
unique skill set and expertise".”
Does this mean that there are other
ways to obtain the same information? If so, how would that be legal
given that the police should be the only source of such information?
If the information is covered by data protection, I would be interested
to know what legal methods are used to extract it (i.e. process it)
that would comply with the data protection act. Aside from consent, I
cannot see a way that an outside body ( a 3rd party) could access such
personal information. I would not think that s.35 of the DPA would
apply or s.29 given that it is the police who hold the information.
 

Can anyone, perhaps someone from the industry, explain how police
information could be obtained legally and in accordance with the DPA?
 

 
Best,
 
Lawrence
 
 
From: This list is for those interested in Data
Protection issues [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Ibrahim Hasan
Sent: 23 May 2012 08:32
To: [log in to unmask]
UK
Subject: [data-protection] DWP Staff and Personal Data
 
 
Staff at
the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were disciplined a total of
992 times for unlawfully or inappropriately accessing individuals'
social security records between April 2011 and January this year.
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05/23/almost_1000_offences_in_10_months_at_dwp/
 
 
Regards

Ibrahim Hasan
Solicitor and Director
Act Now Training
Limited

For training without the strain of the train:
www.actnow.org.uk
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ActNowTraining

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