HL Deb 14 July 1983 vol 443 cc969-70WA
Lord Avebury

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they will give details of the data bases, other than those concerning matters of national security, which are available for use by the units of the Metropolitan Police C Department, including, in each case, the number of records, the number of accesses in the last complete month, the distribution and number of terminals from which there is access, and whether free text retrieval techniques can be used.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton)

I understand from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that the computer facilities dedicated to C Department provide separate data bases which support the Fraud Squad; the Central Drugs Intelligence Unit; the Special Branch; the Special Intelligence Section, which has responsibility for collating intelligence relating to organised international crime; the South East Regional Intelligence Unit; and all four of the area analytical and targeting units set up to deal with burglary and street crime. All the data bases have free text retrieval facilities.

At 30th June 1983 the total number of records(1) held on C Department's computer facilities, excluding those relating to national security, was 152,186(2). The total number of searches(3) conducted during June 1983, excluding those relating to national security, was 49,324(4). A more detailed analysis of this data and information about the number and distribution of terminals would indicate the scale of effort devoted to the various units and their location. This information could be used to counter police operations and it would not he right to disclose it.

Notes

(1)Each record is uniquely numbered and consists of information relating to a particular subject such as a person, crime or police operation.

(2) The total includes 560 fictitious records for training purposes.

(3) Each person is counted separately; more than one search may often be needed to locate a particular piece of text.

(4) The total includes about 2,000 searches made for training purposes.