Computers (Personal Data) (Hansard, 27 March 1984)

§ Mr. Waddington

[pursuant to his reply, 13 March 1984, c. 79]: The following table sets out the current 119W position. Personal data has been taken to mean data which, either alone or taken with other information held within the Home Office, identify a living individual. For details of the project at Bedford prison and the system at Bootle dealing with immigration. I refer the hon. Member to the

Computer system	Purpose for which data held	Sources of data	Disclosure of personal information outside Home Office	Terminal access	Indices
Criminal Appeals	Statistical	All criminal courts	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Breathalyser Tests	Statistical	Returns from Police Forces	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Court Appearances/ Cautions	Statistical	Returns from Police Forces	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Offenders Index	Statistical	Returns from Police Forces	Occasionally for bona fide research	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Prison Index	Location of prisoners and other administrative purposes; statistical	Returns from Prison Department Establishments	Location to authorised enquiries including Department of Health and Social Security, Police Forces, and Probation Service. About 500 enquiries per week in total	Home Office only	About 300,000 names of inmates past and present in Prison Department Establishments
Probation Index	Statistical	Returns from Probation areas	None	Home Office only	About 400,000 names of persons under the supervision of Probation Service
Prison Adjudications	Statistical and administrative	Returns from Prison department Establishments	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Drug Addicts	Statistical	Returns from Doctors	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Drug Offenders	Statistical	Returns from Police Forces	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Drug Seizures	Statistical	Returns from Police Forces and HM Customs and Excise	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Experiments on Living Animals (Statistical Returns)	Statistical and administrative	Returns from persons licenced to carry out experiments	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Fires	Statistical and administrative	Returns from fire brigades	The research staff at the Fire Research Station; occasionally for bona fide re-search	Home Office, Fire Research Station, Department of the Environment	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Persons accepted for settlement on removal of time limit from the Indian Sub-Continent	Statistical	Departmental records	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Index of Mentally Disordered Offenders	Statistical and administrative	Departmental records. Returns from courts. Confirmatory returns from hospitals.	Occasionally for bona fide research	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Parole Index	Research and statistical	Departmental records	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Parole Adverse Notice Recall	Research and statistical	Departmental records	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Personnel Records	Personnel Management	Individual employees and departmental re-cords	To the individual concerned annually. To another Government Department where the employee is loaned or transferred.	Home Office only	Approximately 33,000 names/NI numbers

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replies given on 24 and 27 February, at columns 660.61 and 5.6 respectively, and for the police national computer and the television licence record system to the reply given on 9 March at column 720.22 to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen).

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Computer system	Purpose for which data held	Sources of data	Disclosure of personal information outside Home Office	Terminal access	Indices
Pay	To assist payment of Home Office employees	Individual employees and departmental re-cords, Inland Revenue, Department of Health and Social Security, HM Treasury and organisations authorised to receive deductions from pay	Individual employees, Inland Revenue, Department of Health and Social Security, organisations and banks authorised by the individuals. There is no information on the number of disclosures available	Home Office only	Approximately 16,000 names/NI numbers
Details of Extended Interview Candidates for Police, Prison Department and Fire Service	Statistical analysis of candidates performance	Candidates and Interview Boards	None	Home Office only	Approximately 1,200 unique numbers
Fire Service College	Support for courses	Fire brigades and College records	Fire Brigade	Home Office only	To be built up to approximately 20,000 records over 5 years. Indexed by name and NI number
Automatic Fingerprint Recognition System	Research and development	Metropolitan Police	None	Home Office only	Approximately 10,000 records accessed by following indices: criminal record office number place of arrest, fingerprint classification, category of crime.
Police Research Services unit Information Desk	To provide a central reference point about research into policing	Police Forces	Police Forces	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Experiments on Living Animals Licencees Index	Statistical and administration	Licencees or the organisations for which they work or where they study	None	None	Approximately 20,000 unique numbers
Accounts	Payment of travelling, subsistence and other expenses to members of staff, fee-paid persons and probation service students	Claimants	None	Home Office only	Unique number
Blood Groups	Efficient cataloguing of laboratory records and provision of statistics on blood group frequencies	Samples submitted by Police Forces	None	Forensic Science Laboratories only	Approximately 11,000 records indexed by case/sample number and/or name
Forensic Science Casework Management	Efficient management of work	Case records	None	Forensic Science Laboratories only	Approximately 1,700 names/case numbers
Refugee Index	Maintaining records of individual refugee applications. Production of statistics for UNHCR and other interested bodies	Applications and departmental records	None	Home Office only	Building up to approximately 15,000 records indexed by name and file number
Immigration Service Intelligence Unit	Providing prompt retreval of information about abuse of immigration laws	Mostly from departmental records or Police Forces. A small amount is obtained from other Government Departments and from individuals.	Entry Clearance Officers abroad. Occasionally to Police Forces and HM Customs. No estimate of the number of disclosures is available.	Immigration Service only	No indices in the conventional sense^*
Immigration Service Illegal Entry Unit	Monitoring progress and co-ordinating action in illegal entry cases. Production of quarterly and annual statistics.	Departmental records and Immigration Officers	Police Forces. No estimate of the number of disclosures is available.	Immigration Service only	Approximately 420 reference numbers/ personal particulars
Prison Psychology Units	Administrative statistical and research	Inmates and departmental records	None	Home Office only	No indices in the conventional sense^*

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Computer system	Purpose for which	Sources of data	Disclosure of personal information outside Home Office	Terminal access	Indices
Facial recognition research system	Research and development	Photographs of volunteers	Aberdeen University Psychology Department and Home Office	Aberdeen University only	Approximately 1,000 records of facial feature codes accessed by record number

The Home Office owns a number of computers which are based in police forces for research purposes but the Home Office does not control the contents and use of the data.

^* Where there is an entry in the 'Indices' column which reads "No indices in the conventional sense" this means that the data is held in serial form on the computer and can be accessed only by searching it from beginning to end looking for the parameters specified in a particular enquiry.