Safe keeping of evidence
Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FOI/24/006581/Y
Version Date: 27/08/2024
The Alliance Information Management Department have provided the following information.
- Please can you tell me. What do Police do with emails. Which are sent and replied to has part of an old or ongoing Police Investigation.
What does the Law say must happen to these emails?
Emails which form part of an investigation and deemed relevant to the investigation, are retained with the case file in accordance with the Management of Police Information (MoPI).
The MoPI category of a Crime determines the lifecycle and retention of the case file and all associated data.
Please see following link for more information: https://www.college.police.uk/app/information-management/management-police-information
If emails pertinent to an old investigation are destroyed by the Police. What Is this. Is this a crime? is there a penalty for this?
It is not always necessary to retain an email to form part of an investigation, the investigating officer determines the nature of the email, acts and investigates accordingly on the information within the email.
If the investigating officer deems it necessary, the email will be retained with the case file. If case material is inadvertently destroyed, Devon & Cornwall Police have a lawful duty to report it to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) as a Data Loss. The ICO would determine the outcome for the Force, this could result in the ICO making recommendations to the force on how we manage our data or a potential financial penalty.
3. If emails pertinent to an ongoing investigation are destroyed by Police. What is this? Is this a crime? Is there a penalty for this?
See answer to question 2.
Please can you explain what happens to all correspondence concerning an old or ongoing investigation. How long does it remain on file. In particular emails.
See answers to question 1 and 2.
5. How long would a resolved incident remain on file, such has a emergency call out to the Police?
In accordance with the Management of Police Information (MoPI).
The MoPI category of a Crime determines the lifecycle and retention of the case file and all associated data.
6. When asking for a SAR release are all emails with information of the applicate released to he/she.
If emails are specified as part of the request, any personal data of the applicant is released subject to exemptions (as per the Data Protection Act 2018).
- When requesting a SAR release. What is the most specific way of wording the application. To enable the applicant receive ALL the information held on them by the Police?
Information not held.
However, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) webiste provides guidance: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/getting-copies-of-your-information-subject-access-request/
8. Please name all Police systems accessed in a SAR search.
The systems accessed in a SAR search depends on the type of request. For example, for incidents or crimes there are current systems or legacy systems, therefore, which one we would search would be dependent on the data range of the request. However, if the SAR was internal, for example for HR records, different internal systems would be searched.