“Police officers who fail to respect data protection undermine confidence in the police service and make it less likely the public will trust them with sensitive material.  They have a duty to use the information and intelligence collected on criminals, in a proper way, to protect the public.”

Speaking in London at a conference on Data Protection and Information Sharing, John Wadham, deputy chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission said:  “Each and every officer has a moral duty to protect the data entrusted to him or her and to use it lawfully to prevent crime.  Where one officer is misusing the Police National Computer (PNC) or other data, then there can be serious implications for other officers.

Failing to collect, retain and pass on material to others to protect children and other vulnerable people is a misconduct issue as much as  the misuse of PNC data which has been a consistent problem during the last 20 years – and still poses a challenge today for the new IPCC.  The types of cases in which abuse occur include using the PNC to gain evidence for civil proceedings, to find evidence about a partner’s estranged husband, or to check out a daughter’s latest boyfriend.  There is also the perennial problem of data being sold to private detectives,” he said.

Mr Wadham said that as a result of Sir Michael Bichard’s findings about the way in which police failures to collect, record, retain and disclose information might have protected those at risk, much more data is now likely to be collected.

He said: “The flipside of collecting all this data is the need to have checks on those using it – we need to be confident that they are doing so correctly.  If all this information is going to be floating around, particularly in sensitive areas such as unproven criminal allegations, the public need to have confidence that the police are going to be using that data correctly.  The IPCC has a role to play here.  We can provide that confidence through offering a way to complain when things go wrong.

“Being a new organisation we do not have much experience yet of investigating the kind of failures exposed by Sir Michael Bichard.  Usually members of the public will not be aware of failures to pass on information and so they will not be able to make complaints.  I hope that the IPCC’s new power to ‘call in’ and investigate issues of misconduct, combined with its closer monitoring of forces, will allow us to pick up some of these vital issues,” he said.

Deaths in custody
John Wadham said that the IPCC does have experience of the need for the police service to share information so as to prevent deaths in custody.

“Working to prevent deaths in custody is one of the key priorities of the IPCC.  We can act as a type of corporate memory – feeding back the lessons that have been learnt from incidents and from near misses to ensure that the same problems do not occur twice.

“Our predecessors supervised a number of cases where mishandling of data had contributed to deaths in police custody.  This included an incident of failure to record that the detained person was at risk of committing self-harm.  This prevented police officers taking the action they would normally take with an individual who has a history of such self-harm or attempted suicide.

“Sometimes this might be about an intelligence failure.  In one instance an individual, who later hung himself, had twice been found in circumstances where it appeared he was trying to commit suicide.  The man was later arrested for drink driving, but because the earlier information had not been recorded there was no way of connecting the two.

“So what can the IPCC do?  We can feed back information from incidents and near misses as quickly as possible.   For example, there was a recent incident where a man hung himself in a cell using his shoelaces.  He was able to do this because he was wearing trainers with zip fastenings which were not identified as a risk.  However, this particular brand of trainers conceals laces underneath the zip.  Circulating information about that particular type of trainers might prevent such a tragedy happening again.  

“We can make sure that information is not kept within one force but lessons are learnt by all.  As in the National Health Service rather than just having a culture of blame, we need one of openness.  

“We can go wider than just the police service.  Sir Michael Bichard examined information sharing across different organisations.  We can also ensure that information is shared between different services.  This does not always happen and it can have fatal consequences.  It is plainly unsatisfactory that the prison service often has information about an individual’s history of self-harm but the police service does not know, as the PNC is not updated,” he concluded.

- ends -

Notes to Editors:

• John Wadham was previously the Director of Liberty (the National Council for Civil Liberties.)
• The IPCC took over responsibility for police complaints in England and Wales on 1 April 2004 from the Police Complaints Authority.
• The IPCC is a new organisation with increased powers and responsibilities.  All serious incidents involving death or serious injury, allegations of racially discriminatory behaviour and corruption must be referred to the IPCC.  It then decides how the investigation should be investigated.
• Since 1 April the IPCC has started to investigate two fatal shootings independently –using its own team of investigators - in Launceston, Cornwall and Thornton Heath, South London.  The IPCC is also managing 11 new investigations and started supervising inquiries into more than 100 incidents.
• The IPCC has new powers to decide appeals against the police service’s refusal to record a complaint and the outcome of complaints investigated by the police service themselves.   It is also responsible for setting standards that the police service must meet when investigating complaints from members of the public.
• The 18 Commissioners appointed to the Commission have never, by law, been employed by the police service.
• The IPCC has its headquarters in London and four regional offices serving London & South East, Wales & South West, Central and Northern England.

Issued by Richard M Offer 020-7166 3214 or 020-7166 3250 3124.  Out of hours 07717 851157.