Digital devices - 234/19

Date Responded 28 March 2019

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:

Please can you tell me what your force's current backlog is in terms of the number of digital devices awaiting forensic examination?

In Response:

As of 18/02/19 we had 302 cases awaiting forensic analysis consisting of 999 exhibits. This includes Computers, Mobile Phones, CD’s DVD’s Games Consoles, Hard Drives, Memory Cards, Media Players, Sim cards, Tablets, USB Flash Drives, and wearables. Obviously this number is dynamic and will change on a daily basis.

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.