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Request
As part of some research into how much social media companies are providing assistance when requested by law enforcement, please see the below request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Please provide the following information for the period 2019 to 2024 for North Yorkshire Police. If possible, please present the information in six month sections. So in total this would be
Q1. The total number of investigations began by North Yorkshire Police within those periods.
Q2. The total number of investigations by North Yorkshire Police within those periods, in which information to support prosecution, other than that which is already in the public domain, was requested from the company Meta, or any of its subsidiaries or trading names.
Q3. The total number of investigations by North Yorkshire Police within those periods, in which any of the information requested in point 3 was subsequently provided by Meta.
Q4. The total number of requests by North Yorkshire Police, within those periods, made to Meta for any information other than that in the public domain.
Q5. Of the requests in point 4, how many were successful for each period?
If you are unable to provide the data for the Jan-Jun period of each year, please instead provide it for each calendar year or for quarterly or annual periods since 2019 which have already been collated by you. If the data requested in one point above is not available, please explain why but still address the remaining points. Please provide such data electronically, ideally as a spreadsheet or table.
Response
Extent of Searches to Locate Information
Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information.
Decision
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.
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. In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all requests made to Meta to determine if they were made for the purposes of supporting a prosecution. This would involve thousands of reports over the timeframe requested, 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, we may be able to provide you with the information for Q1 if you resubmit your request. 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.