Chief Constable of Humberside Police and Others v Information Commissioner, Secretary of State for the Home Department intervening
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 19 October 2009 |
| Neutral Citation | [2009] EWCA Civ 1079 |
| Date | 19 October 2009 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Court of Appeal
Before Lord Justice Waller, Lord Justice Carnwath and Lord Justice Hughes
There could be no question of the retention of records of old minor convictions being held in the national police computer to be either excessive or being held for longer than necessary.
It was for the data controller to determine the purposes for which data were processed and it was a registered purpose to hold information so that it could be supplied to others in legitimate need such as the courts and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Court of Appeal so stated (Lord Justice Carnwath dissenting in part) when allowing the appeals of the Chief Constables of Humberside Police, Staffordshire Police, Northumbria Police, West Midlands Police and Greater Manchester Police against a decision of the information tribunal (Mr John A ngel, chairman) ([2007] UKIT EA 2007/0096,0098,0108,0127).
The Information Commissioner had received complaints from five individuals HP, SP, NP, WMP and GMP about the retention and disclosure of old minor convictions. The commissioner issued five enforcement notices against five different chief constables seeking to compel the deletion of the convictions. On appeal, the information tribunal held that the retention of the convictions would infringe principles of the Data Protection Act 1998 and so they should be deleted.
Mr David N. Jones for the chief constables; Mr Timothy Pitt-Payne for the Information Commissioner; Mr Jonathan Swift and Ms Cecilia Ivimy for the Secretary of State for the Home Department, intervening.
LORD JUSTICE WALLER said that the issue on the appeal was whether by virtue of the eight data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the 1998 Act the police were bound to delete certain old convictions from the police national computer.
The complaint in four cases followed the disclosure of convictions pursuant to a request by the Criminal Records Bureau, and in one case, a request by the individual herself.
It was important to emphasise at the outset that the complaint about retention flowed in reality not from the retention itself but from the fact that, if retained, disclosure might follow.
In respect of each of those convictions the information tribunal upheld the view of the Information Commissioner that they should be deleted.
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