FAQ Details
Photographs - 132/10
Dated: 07 Jun 2011
Date of request: 27/02/2010
Date of response: 23/03/2010
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')(FOIA)
Thank you for your email dated 27 February 2010 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
"Follwing the recent incident where Kevin Geraghty-Shewan was questioned over taking photographs of his son, and was questioned by a police officer and the following was reported : 'I told him it was ridiculous because it was my own son. He then started asking me what I was doing in Sunderland, asked for my name and address and told me he had the right to delete my pictures.'
What action is being taken by the police force to communicate to their officers they neither have the right to demand a name and address in such circumstances and more importantly have no rights to delete photographs without a court order.
This seems to be a common aspect of police forces across the country when dealing with photographers. Are Northumbria Police willing to take a lead?"
In response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
All reports of dissatisfaction about staff/officers performance are investigated by a substantive supervisory officer. If there is an individual training need identified this is addressed by placing the officers / member of police staff on the appropriate training course or giving the requisite one to one training. In respect of the specific issue mentioned in the request, there has been no need to undertake training of all staff. However, the incident has been recorded and any further occurrences of this type would be dealt with as detailed above.
No information held. This part of your request is asking for an opinion, not for information held, and is therefore not a valid question under FOIA.
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our complaints procedure which can be found at: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/foicomprights.asp
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.