Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
- The number of incidents reported to your force over the last two financial years involving Instagram, broken down by year.
- The number of incidents reported to your force over the last two financial years involving Facebook, broken down by year.
- Could you also include police notes around the nature of the incident e.g. online grooming, harassment, fraud, theft etc. and any other relevant details.
In Response:
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Corporate Development Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows with the caveat below noted
These figures have been gathered by a search for the key words “ Facebook” and “Instagram” in the description of the incident. If the words "Facebook" or "Instagram" have not been used (eg, the words "social media" used instead) the incident will not be included. There are some cases where both Instagram and Facebook have been noted in the descriptor.
Additionally to fully offer a response to point 3 would have exceeded the 18 hour threshold and your request would have been refused under Section 12. In order to avoid this we have provided the opening codes descriptor only, to produce a breakdown of incident type.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would expect that you to take into consideration the factors highlighted above so as not to mislead members of the public or official bodies or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
With all the above in mind please see the below.
1&2.
Financial Year End |
|
|
31/03/2019 |
5 |
31 |
31/03/2020 |
332 |
2101 |
3.
Summary |
Count - Instagram |
Count - Facebook |
Concern for Safety |
45 |
428 |
Stalking and Harassment |
55 |
367 |
Other Notifiable Crime (inc. Bomb Hoaxes) |
35 |
171 |
Suspicious Activity |
38 |
158 |
Generic Public Safety |
20 |
127 |
Child Sexual Exploitation/Grooming |
25 |
7 |
Domestic Incident |
14 |
206 |
TRANSPORT, inc RTC, Marine/Aircraft/ Road off |
3 |
16 |
Violence |
36 |
311 |
Anti Social Behaviour (All) |
15 |
159 |
Sexual Offence |
40 |
24 |
Criminal Damage |
1 |
19 |
Missing Person |
2 |
23 |
Generic Administration |
7 |
49 |
Theft |
1 |
59 |
Robbery |
0 |
1 |
Burglary |
0 |
4 |
Vehicle Crime |
0 |
3 |