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Request
West Yorkshire police provided a snap shot of the number of registered sex offenders residing in each district of Leeds on a chosen day under Sarah's Law. Please may I have the equivalent information for the Scarborough wards. I can send a picture of the information that west Yorkshire communicated if required.
Q1. 20 March 2023
Q2. As most recent date as possible
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.
I note that your request is valid as a standalone Freedom of Information Request and is not relevant to the Sarah’s Law disclosure scheme. Further information relating to the Sarah Law disclosure scheme can be found by following the link below.
Find out if a person has a record for child sexual offences - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Q1. On 20 March 2023 North Yorkshire Police had 214 Registered Sex Offenders residing in the Scarborough area.
Q2. As of 03 October 2024 North Yorkshire Police had 268 Registered Sex Offenders residing in the Scarborough area.
Please note that the figures provided are correct as of the dates mentioned within each individual response and due to the nature of the requested data this is fluid can change on a daily basis.
I am exempting any further breakdown of this data namely the ward within Scarborough that these people are residing. Please see the full exemption explanation below.
Section 40 – Personal Information
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.
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.