§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what legislation is required to implement the police national computer network, the new criminal record system or the integration of police criminal information systems in general; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe need for legislation is one of the matters which is considered in preparing the case for new national information services for the police. It is presently being considered in relation to both a police national network and a new national criminal records system and would need to be examined in any proposal for the integration of police criminal information systems.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the current size of each category found in the wanted and missing persons index of the police national computer; and whether he can include in these statistics an indication of the minimum and maximum size of each category in the index over the year.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe information requested is as follows:
Category Current Wanted 33,192 Fails to Appear 36,544 Suspect 21 Impending Prosecution 77 Deserter 1,367 Locate 51,582 Missing 2,460 Found 15 Absconder—from care 484 —from hospital 81 —from detention 4 —from youth custody 112 —from prison 1,140 —from remand 11 —from school 36 Recall —from detention 0 —from youth custody 2 —from prison 319 Figures on the minimum and maximum size of each category over the past year are not available.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many subject access requests were made under the Data Protection Act 1984 to the Metropolitan police for each year since 1987; and what proportion were made to criminal records.
§ Mr. Peter LloydI understand that the number of subject access requests made to the Metropolitan police in each year since 1987 was as follows:
Year Number 1987 23 1988 423 1989 1,131 1990 1,647 11991 399 1 March. Statistics are not kept on the proportion of requests which relate to criminal records, but it is estimated that the vast majority of requests were for this purpose.
The vast majority sought access to criminal names.
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§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the current size of each index of the police national computer; and whether he can include in these statistics an indication of the minimum and maximum size of each index over the last year.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe information requested is as follows:
Intex Current size Vehicle owners 39,017,200 Stolen vehicles 547,332 Chassis-engine numbers 914,274 Wanted/missing persons 131,948 Cross reference 706,363 Disqualified drivers 382,298 Convictions 3,827,885 Criminal names 5,783,622 Fingerprints 4,270,292 Crime pattern analysis 110,059 Extremists crime index 1,152 Major investigations 330,939 Information on the minimum and maximum size of each index over the last year has not been collected because of other essential work on preparing the database for its transfer to the new police national computer.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has as to the number of accesses made to the police national computer by each constabulary in Great Britain over the last year; and whether he can give the proportion of access requests made to the vehicle indexes of the police national computer.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe information requested is as follows:
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Force Numbers of transactions for the year up to May 1991 Proportion of transactions made to vehicle indices Avon and Somerset 994,287 64.8 Bedfordshire 398,709 70.1 British Transport Police 161,730 43.1 Cambridgeshire 388,925 64.0 Central 159,990 52.9 Cheshire 440,291 60.2 City of London 99,339 64.6 Cleveland 357,058 60.7 Cumbria 386,831 62.8 Derbyshire 463,873 68.4 Devon and Cornwall 783,853 61.1 Dorset 515,411 59.2 Dumfries and Galloway 106,396 54.6 Durham 362,429 55.4 Dyfed-Powys 223,378 52.1 Essex 859,664 60.1 Fife 140,848 48.7 Gloucestershire 343,580 68.1 Grampian 290,132 54.0 Greater Manchester 2,436,529 60.6 Guernsey 16,491 6.5 Gwent 232,584 51.5 Hampshire 908,148 60.0 Hertfordshire 451,152 64.7 Humberside 548,998 60.2 Isle of Man 10,234 28.4 Jersey 35,232 5.4 Kent 1,139,038 64.1 Lancashire 1,172,783 57.2 Leicestershire 432,221 64.3 Lincolnshire 288,829 62.8
Force Numbers of transactions for the year up to May 1991 Proportion of transactions made to vehicle indices Lothian and Borders 680,544 62.3 Merseyside 935,499 55.8 Metropolitan 7,773,109 49.1 Norfolk 392,824 67.1 North Wales 346,732 45.1 North Yorkshire 489,871 69.4 Northamptonshire 345,864 69.2 Northern 200,871 51 2 Northumbria 1,124,897 70.5 Nottinghamshire 670,482 75.4 South Wales 895,957 62.6 South Yorkshire 706,531 73.9 Staffordshire 448,699 59.8 Strathclyde 1,341,243 39.2 Suffolk 323,544 61.2 Surrey 370,469 62.2 Sussex 784,633 53.3 Tayside 216,105 47.6 Thames Valley 892,968 60.8 Warwickshire 255,512 73.8 West Mercia 333,871 56.4 West Midlands 1,608,881 65.4 West Yorkshire 1,180,234 59.3 Wiltshire 299,116 67.6
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what statistics he has as to the number of subject access requests made to criminal records held by the Metropolitan police or the police national computer that have been made for vetting purposes; and whether he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter LloydNo statistics are available on this matter as applicants seeking subject access do not have to give reasons for their requests.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many accesses were made to each index of the police national computer over the last year; and whether he will include in these statistics an indication of the number of access requests that could search more than one index.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe total number of accesses to each of the indices of the police national computer in the year to 31 May 1991 was as follows:
Index Number of accesses 1. Stolen and Suspect Vehicles 22,771,400 2. Vehicle Owners 3. Chassis/Engine Numbers 4. Fingerprints 194,074 5. Fingerprints (Scenes of Crime) 13,021 6. Criminal Names1 2,017,903 7. Wanted/Missing Persons 2,144,1(13 8. Disqualified Drivers 725,448 9. Convictions 956,352 10. Major Investigations 1,302 11. Crime Pattern Analysis 296,535 There have also been the following joint accesses:
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Number To indices 6 and 92 2,017,903 To indices 6, 7 and 9 1,534,343 To indices 6, 7, 8 and 9 8,460,357 To indices 4, 6 and 9 606,569
1 The figure for the year to June 1990 was 1,996,349 and not 1,094,072 as incorrectly given on 19 July 1990 at column 664. 2 All access to the criminal names index will in addition automatically generate information from the convictions application.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the current size of each category found in the stolen and suspect vehicle index of the police national computer; and whether he can include in these statistics an indication of the minimum and maximum size of each category in the index over the year.
§ Mr. Peter LloydInformation requested is as follows:
Category Current Confirmed lost or obtained by deception 437,847 Lost or stolen 447,634 Obtained by deception 18 Found 31,712 Removed 16,764 Street to street 152 Repossessed by finance company 0 Suspect 42 Police vehicle 3,037 Blocked 6,980 Information 20,486 Seen 8,021 Information on the minimum and maximum of each category over the last year has not been collected because of other essential work on preparing the database for transfer to the new police national computer.
§ Mr. CohenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many subject access requests were made under the Data Protection Act 1984 to the police national computer for each year since 1987; and what proportion were made to the criminal names index.
§ Mr. Peter LloydThe information requested is as follows:
Number 1987 82 1988 2,628 1989 8,758 1990 13,848 11991 8,413 1 31 May. Nearly all were made of the criminal names index, save in 1987 when the proportion was under 50 per cent.