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What does this actually mean?

Received this back from Hertfordshire Police in response to submitting an anti-social driving complaint which was followed by a request to submit camera footage. Am I being a bit paranoid that this response arrived within an hour of the video upload? Does this mean that one of the options listed will be the actual response, or a possible response along with "Do nothing"?

Would it be worth some bright eyed investigative newshound submitting an enquiry to Herts Police and others as part of understanding where our video submissions end up?

M

Thank you for the submission of your footage, we have now reviewed the footage and will be taking the most appropriate positive action, in relation to the incident you have reported.

These options include the following:

*Warning letter

*Course offer

*Points and fine

*Court

Due to the Data Protection Act 2018 we are unable to provide you with the exact outcome or action that your submission has generated. Further information about the Data Protection Act can be found at https://www.gov.uk/data-protection

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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13 comments

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Mungecrundle | 1 year ago
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Looks like someone gave this a go via FOI request to Herts Police, but got stymied.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/statistics_on_submission_of_vide

I'm not particularly interested in individual outcomes, just seeking some assurance that "the most appropriate positive action" is actually a thing.

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NOtotheEU | 1 year ago
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WMP have only updated me twice on my 100's of reports but have said they wished they had the resources to update on all received. One registered keeper was being prosecuted for failing to name the driver and the other included the name of the driver as it was going to court last week but now posponed until August.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to NOtotheEU | 1 year ago
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I mentioned I had been told about a possible court case with one of mine with WMP. Still awaiting on more details though. Weirdly mine was about driver not being licensed to operate a vehicle or some such language. So I suspect someone not licensed stated they were the driver maybe to cover for the actual driver. Can't see how this could be proven or disproven from my footage though.

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NOtotheEU replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
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I'm guessing the person who took the video just has to be there to avoid the defence having a chance to make something of them not being there? 

Mine is because the accused pleaded not guilty at a previous hearing to driving without due care and attention. I asked for the reg and date but they just told me the date so it could be the blatant red light jumper or the car that nearly hit me as the same lights turned green.

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to NOtotheEU | 1 year ago
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Luckily I only submitted one that day so could review to refresh my memory on it. Someone deciding to force through even though I was indicating to take the straight on lane and had just started my manouvre to it. He was also less then a metre from my back tyre when I glanced behind and started indicating. 

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lonpfrb | 1 year ago
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I suspect that DPA or GDPR relates to identification of a natural person though not clear if that's you or the driver. While you may provide evidence of a public vehicle identifier, the police have the right to request the registered keeper from DVLA records. Thus that's a natural person from whom the police will require identification of the actual driver of the vehicle, as proscribed in law. So that's three natural persons: victim, vehicle keeper, vehicle driver. Thus correct management of the data is a GDPR statutory requirement of the police as data controller.

How that is not foreseeable so possible to design the tools and practices for, is a matter for the Chief Constable and their Data Protection officer (ico.gov.uk). Failing that the PCC...

For reference, Kent Police has no issue with informing the victim about the evidence collection, appropriate options and court outcomes.

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Secret_squirrel replied to lonpfrb | 1 year ago
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The GDPR bit is bullshit either because of a massively risk adverse DPO or because the need it for an excuse coz they can't be arsed. 
Very few other forces do it which leads me to suspect it's a feeble excuse. 
How that policy was implemented might be a good use of a FOI.

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mdavidford replied to Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
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There is a third possibility - crap data protection training leading to the individuals handling the cases assuming there will be issues and rejecting the requests without even referring to the DPO.

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IanMSpencer replied to Secret_squirrel | 1 year ago
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Yet bizarrely in rape cases they are extremely free with extracting the maximum amount of data from victims which then through disclosure has to be shared with the defence who can trawl through it.

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chrisonabike replied to IanMSpencer | 1 year ago
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Ah but with cyclists it's a victimless crime... I do wonder though what happens if this sort of thing ended up in court - would they hide the defendant when you came to give evidence and refer to them solely as "the defendant" or by pseudonyms while you were there?  GDPR and all...

As others have said it wouldn't be the first time the police are not fully up on the law.  Cynics would say that these errors happen selectively.

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AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
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Sounds like just a standard reply and yes, they will push for one of the above action once the driver is traced (and if it isn't traced then could be nothing). For example court would be the end of the list if he doesn't take an earlier option.

However I think it would be nice to know why the Data Protection Act 2018 stops the person who is reporting the incident from finding out the action their footage has caused to be taken. They don't have to submit a name or address of the driver. Seems on par with "Witnesses won't be kept informed" when as a cyclist, most of us are actual victims of the bad driving. 

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Rendel Harris replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
1 like

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

However I think it would be nice to know why the Data Protection Act 2018 stops the person who is reporting the incident from finding out the action their footage has caused to be taken. They don't have to submit a name or address of the driver. Seems on par with "Witnesses won't be kept informed" when as a cyclist, most of us are actual victims of the bad driving. 

A ridiculous excuse which is also used by the Metropolitan Police, they basically said that to inform me of the outcome they would have to send me a copy of the letter, sanctioning document or whatever they sent out, and that would breach the driver's right to privacy because it would have his/her name on it. I said fine, just send me a copy with the name and address redacted or just a one line email saying in this case this happened. No, our procedure would be that we would have to send you the letter which we can't do for the aforementioned reasons…

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lonpfrb replied to Rendel Harris | 1 year ago
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Rendel Harris wrote:

A ridiculous excuse which is also used by the Metropolitan Police, they basically said that to inform me of the outcome they would have to send me a copy of the letter, sanctioning document or whatever they sent out, and that would breach the driver's right to privacy because it would have his/her name on it.

Yes, total bullshit since a court conviction is a matter of public record.

Kent Police have no such issue and did send me a letter about the conviction, fine, costs, and points that resulted from a close pass incident. The same GDPR applies, just a different cast of characters: DPO, Chief Constable, PCC..

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