ICO may question legality of police databases

Police databases are again under the spotlight

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has raised concerns about the amount of public data held in police databases.

Police are routinely collecting information on innocent members of the public, for example by taking photographs of protestors, and the ICO has now asked why such large amounts of data are necessary.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), a strategic body charged with co-ordinating the direction of the police service, said in response that it is willing to review the way in which police databases hold data, but was vague when it came to what this means.

An ACPO spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the body would consider limiting the amount of data collected by the police. "I am not going to be drawn on that until the ICO has a conversation with us," she said.

Deputy information commissioner David Smith explained that organisations should only be collecting personal information for a proper purpose.

"We will need to talk to ACPO to understand why they consider it necessary to hold lawful protesters' details in this way, before considering whether this meets the terms of the Data Protection Act," he said.

"The Act is not a barrier to effective law enforcement, but it does provide people with important privacy rights. We do have genuine concerns about the ever increasing amounts of information that law enforcement bodies are retaining."