ANPR, in-car and safety camera vans privacy notice

This privacy notice relates to Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), in-car cameras and safety camera vans.

The Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police is committed to protecting your personal information.

This Privacy Notice contains important information about what personal details we collect; what we do with that information; who we may share it with and why; and your choices and rights when it comes to the personal information you have given to us.

We may need to make changes to our Privacy Notice, so please check our website for updates from time to time. If there are important changes such as changes to where your personal data will be processed, we may need to contact you to let you know.

Who we are?

This Privacy Notice is provided to you by the Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police who is the data controller of this data.

Your personal data – what is it?

“Personal data” is any information about a living individual which allows them to be identified.  Identification can be directly using the data itself, or by combining it with other information which helps to identify a living individual. The processing of personal data is governed by legislation relating to personal data which applies in the United Kingdom including the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and other legislation relating to personal data and rights, such as the Human Rights Act.

Data we may collect about you:

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR):

Personal Data that we may collect includes:

• Photographic, video and digital imagery;
• Location and vehicle movement data; and
• Vehicle make, model and registration number.

Personal data collected by ANPR cameras may be used to:

• Draw officers’ attention to offending vehicles whilst allowing law abiding drivers to go about their business unhindered;
• Detect offences, including locating stolen vehicles, tackling uninsured vehicle use and solving cases of terrorism, major and organised crime;
• Provide lines of enquiry and evidence in the investigation of crime; and
• Speed up investigations.

In-Car Cameras:

Personal Data that we may collect includes:

• Photographs,
• Video and digital imagery; and
• Audio.

The In-car cameras have the capability to record the internal environment for instance, the officers and suspects inside the car, but also externally.

Personal data collected by In-car cameras may be used for evidential purposes, complaint resolution, or occasionally, for media releases. The in-car cameras run for the entire duration the vehicle is in use. No audio is recorded unless the officer activates the audio record function. This may happen during a pursuit so that the police radio conversation is captured on the recording, or when a suspect is placed in the car and the audio is needed for evidential purposes.

Please note that Police Officers can exercise discretion and use their professional judgement in relation to when audio is recorded. In instances where hostile suspects are being dealt with, audio may be recorded from the beginning of the interaction to safeguard the Officers.

In-car Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras are mounted inside some of our patrol cars, they send instant information to Officers inside the car about suspicious vehicles.

Safety Camera Vans:

Personal Data that we may collect includes:

• Photographic, video and digital imagery of the individual suspected of committing a traffic offence, the offence itself and data relating to anything else captured by the camera at the time the alleged offence was being recorded;
• Vehicle movement including location data and times and dates;
• Vehicle make, model and registration number; and
• Speed at which the vehicle was travelling.

Personal data collected by Safety Camera Vans may be used to:

• Improve road safety and reduce anti-social behaviour and inappropriate road use, including the reduction of collisions and casualties;
• Detect and prevent traffic offences; and
• Improve community confidence and provide reassurance to members of the public.

Some of our safety camera vans are also fitted with ANPR, so when it is appropriate they can do two jobs at once. However, they can only be turned on in response to a legitimate policing issue.

Please note, all of the cameras (ANPR, In-Car and Safety Camera Vans) collect collateral data, so members of the public not of interest to the Police may also be recorded.

North Yorkshire Police will use the minimum amount of personal information necessary to carry out a particular activity.

What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?

The Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police may process personal data as part of their official duties, for the purpose of prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security.

The Data Controller will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal data we hold about you must be:

• Used lawfully and fairly;
• Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
• Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;
• Accurate and kept up to date;
• Kept only as long as is necessary for the purposes we have told you about;
• Kept and destroyed securely, including ensuring that appropriate technical and security measures are in place to protect your personal data and to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure.

Sharing your personal data:

We may share your personal data internally with relevant departments for the purpose of fulfilling the above stated legal basis. We may also engage the services of other agencies to meet legal requirements, or fulfil another lawful basis.

Data collected by ANPR is uploaded to the National ANPR Data Centre (NADC) and the National ANPR Service (NAS), where it is stored with data from other Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA). Other LEA’s have access to this data for legitimate policing purposes. ANPR provides lines of enquiry and evidence in the investigation of crime and is used by LEA’s.

Data collected by Safety Camera Vans may be shared with the courts, Crown Prosecution Service and Solicitors if necessary for the purposes of pursuing a conviction.

Where we have arrangements to share your personal data, there is a contract, memorandum of understanding or information sharing agreement in place to ensure that the requirements of the Data Protection legislation on handling personal information are met. Where we are required to disclose information by law, for example for safeguarding purposes, we may do so without these arrangements.

We engage with third party processors who handle some, or all, of the above mentioned information on our instruction.

NYP will take steps to ensure any disclosures of personal data are necessary and proportionate, as required by law. Whenever we share your personal information, sharing options will be evaluated to ensure that your data is shared in the most secure manner.

How do we keep your personal information secure?

We are committed to ensuring that your personal data is safe and processed securely. In order to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised manner, altered or disclosed, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial measures. These include information security awareness training for our staff. We have also compiled procedures to safeguard and secure the information that we hold about you which our staff adhere to.

We limit the access to your personal information to those employees who have a business need to know, for instance through secure work areas and access controls on all of our systems. Employees, contractors and other third parties who handle personal data will only process your personal information in line with our direct instructions.

How long do we keep your personal information?

North Yorkshire Police keeps your personal information as long as is necessary for the particular purpose, or purposes, for which it is held.

Records that contain your personal information processed for “general data” purposes will be managed in accordance with the Force’s Retention Schedule.

Retention guidelines for personal information which is placed on the Police National Computer can be found within the National Police Chief’s Council’s Deletion of Records from National Police Systems document.

Other records that contain your personal information and which was processed for law enforcement purposes are retained in accordance with the College of Policing guidance on the Management of Police Information and North Yorkshire Police Record Retention Policy.

Your rights and personal data:

A key area of change in the new Data Protection Act relates to individuals’ rights. The law refreshes existing rights by clarifying and extending them and introduces new rights.

However your information rights will be dependent on the reason why the data was collected, how the data was collected and why it is being used.

Further information about your rights can be found on our Data Protection page.

Further processing:

If we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Privacy Notice, we may provide you with a new notice explaining this new use and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions, prior to commencing the processing.  We will seek your prior consent to the new processing if this is appropriate.

Contact details:

Details as to how we can be contacted, as well as how you can submit a complaint is available on our website. Please see our privacy notice.

This version of our Privacy Notice was last updated on 23 April 2021.