Data Controllers – How to deal with a Police Data Request?
30 January 2015
Earlier this week, a number of daily papers ran an Edinburgh local interest story about a stolen bicycle. Bike theft in Edinburgh is not newsworthy in itself, regrettably, as we can testify (twice..). However, the distinctive bike was later spotted by its owner, being sold on Gumtree. Upon contacting the Police, the owner was, reportedly, told not only that the Police were unable to ask Gumtree to divulge the seller’s identity “because of data protection”, but that they would need a warrant to obtain the information. It is unclear why the police have not used section 29 of the DPA in these circumstances as the seller is undoubtedly a suspect in relation to the theft or reset “(criminal resale)” of the bike and we do not think a warrant was required.