BSCC-FOI-0723-NC: PoFA s21: report to Home Secretary
Updated 10 January 2024
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Professor Fraser Sampson
Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Date 27 April 2023
Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner
To: Richard Holmes
By email
Our Ref: BSCC-FOI-0723-NC
Dear Richard
I write in response to an email received from you to my office on 31 March 2023, in which you asked for all correspondence between the Commissioner and the Home Office – be it the Home Secretary or her advisors, between March 2022 and March 2023 relating to the storage of the DNA and fingerprints of arrested people. Specifically, you request stated:
I am requesting for correspondence between the Commissioner and the Home Office – be it the Home Secretary or her advisors.
I would like to request correspondence between March 2022 and March 2023 relating to the storage of the DNA and fingerprints of arrested people and would like the request to include all correspondence both ways between the two parties.
My office sought clarification of your request by email on the same day, alerting you to the fact that, as the request was so broad, there was a risk it could fall foul of the section 12 exemption, where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.
On 17 April 2023, you emailed my office, stating that your request was “specifically for a letter sent by the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner to the Home Secretary in November 2022 concerning the holding of citizen’s personal DNA on police databases where those citizens are considered a threat to national security.” Additionally, you requested “this letter and any responses to it from the Home Office.”
Please be aware that, whilst the Biometrics Commissioner is not listed in Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as a public authority bound by the Act, the Surveillance Camera Commissioner is. Since I was appointed to both of these roles in March 2021, my policy has been to treat any requests made under the Freedom of Information Act for biometrics-related information as a request made under the Act. Your request has therefore been handled as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 sets out the Commissioner’s functions, with section 21 dealing with reports the Commissioner makes to the Home Secretary, and the duties both the Commissioner and the Home Secretary have around these reports.
21 Reports by Commissioner
(1) The Commissioner must make a report to the Secretary of State about the carrying out of the Commissioner’s functions as soon as reasonably practicable after the end of—
(a) the period of 9 months beginning when this section comes into force, and
(b) every subsequent 12 month period.
(2) The Commissioner may also, at any time, make such report to the Secretary of State on any matter relating to the Commissioner’s functions as the Commissioner considers appropriate.
(3) The Secretary of State may at any time require the Commissioner to report on any matter relating to the Commissioner’s functions.
(4) On receiving a report from the Commissioner under this section, the Secretary of State must—
(a) publish the report, and
(b) lay a copy of the published report before Parliament.
(5) The Secretary of State may, after consultation with the Commissioner, exclude from publication any part of a report under this section if, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, the publication of that part would be contrary to the public interest or prejudicial to national security.
You will no doubt be aware from my website [footnote 1] that the report you refer to in your request was submitted to the Home Secretary under section 21(2) of PoFA. Section 21(4) requires that the Home Secretary publish any report made by the Commissioner under s21. Therefore the report is exempt from disclosure under your FoI request under section 22 of FoI, as it is intended for future publication. The Home Secretary responded to the report on 23 March 2023, and any government response to the report would usually be published alongside the report (noting, however, the provision for exclusion under s.21(5) above). There has been no consultation between the Home Secretary and the Commissioner in relation to any such proposed exclusion.
If you are dissatisfied with this response, you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request by submitting a complaint within two months to the address below, quoting reference OBSCC-FOI-0723-NC. If you ask for an internal review, it would be helpful if you could say why you are dissatisfied with the response.
Mark Greenhorn
14th Floor Lunar House Building
40 Wellesley Road, Croydon
CR9 2BY
e-mail: sciencesupportfoi@homeoffice.gov.uk
As part of any internal review, our handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. If you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.
Kind regards
Fraser Sampson
Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner
Email: enquiries@obscc.org.uk