FOI Immigration Detentions (1256-2023/24)

Request

Q1.How many people detained under UK immigration legislation powers have been held in your force's police cells from 01 January 2022 to 31 January 2024?

Q2. Please disaggregate by police station and by length of detention, using the following lengths of detentions

a.Up to 24 hours b. 24-48 c. 48-72 d. 72-96 e. 96 - 120 f. 120 hours plus

Of those held:
Q3. How many were released without restrictions?
Q4. How many were released on immigration bail?
Q5. How many were transferred to another place of detention?

Response

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.

Q1. Please see the table below which details the number of people held in North Yorkshire Police custody cells for immigration related offences from 01 Janaury 2022 to 31 January 2023, broken down by station.

Station	Count
Harrogate	77
Scarborough	14
York	57
Total	148

Q2.  Please see the table below which details the number of people held in North Yorkshire Police custody cells for immigration related offences from 01 Janaury 2022 to 31 January 2023, broken down by length of detention.

Station	Count
Less than 24 hrs	89
24 – 48 hrs	54
More than 48 hrs	5
Total	148

I note that the longest a person was held is 70 hours.

Section 40 – Personal Information

I am exempting a further breakdown of the time spent in custody pursuant to Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act).

Where an individual can be identified by such data, releasing it would clearly breach the first data protection principle of being ‘fair’ to the data subject.

Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

Section 40(2) is an absolute class based exemption, which does not require a public interest test, but requires the balancing of the legitimate interests of the public against the interests of the individual under the first Data Protection Principle; in that processing of personal data must be lawful and fair (DPA 2018 35(1), EUGDPR Article 5(1)).

This exemption applies because the right given under the FOI Act to request official information held by public authorities does not apply to the personal data of third parties where disclosure of that information would not be fair to the individual, and where there is no legitimate public interest in disclosure.

In all the circumstances of the case it has been determined that the duty to the individual under the Data Protection Act 2018 & EU General Data Protection Regulations, and the public interest in maintaining the exemption from disclosure of personal information held by the force in such instances, outweighs the public interest in disclosure.  In this instance, personal information can only be disclosed to the individual concerned. 

Releasing personal details to a person other than the data subject would not only breach the data subject’s Data Protection rights it may also breach the obligations placed on an authority under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a refusal notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to your request.

Q3, Q4 & Q5. I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt. I have decided to provide some fo the information above as a gesture of goodwill however, the rest of your request is exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is required to retrieve that information. In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all immigration detentions to determine if the subject was released without restrictions, on immigration bail or if they were transferred to another detention facility, which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.