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Privacy notice

This privacy notice provides information on how the College of Policing processes personal data as part of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection (NCVPP) Strategic Threat Risk Assessment (STRA) and related analytical products. This includes analysis undertaken to support policing's understanding of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and public protection threats, and work undertaken in response to Recommendation 17 of Part 2 of the Angiolini Inquiry. This notice also outlines your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Our purposes for processing

The College of Policing, through the NCVPP analytical team, processes information obtained from police forces and national policing datasets to:

•    develop the NCVPP Strategic Threat Risk Assessment (STRA);
•    understand the scale and nature of VAWG and public protection threats across England and Wales;
•    identify emerging threats, patterns and trends;
•    identify links between different forms of victimisation and offending, including repeat and cross-boundary offending;
•    support policing's response to recommendations made within the Angiolini Inquiry;
•    understand the role of geographical and environmental factors associated with offending;
•    identify opportunities for prevention, safeguarding and enforcement activity; and
•    provide evidence-based products and recommendations to policing and public protection professionals.

As part of this work, information may be analysed using geospatial techniques to better understand where offences occur and whether there are patterns associated with different types of locations. The outputs of this analysis are intended to support strategic decision-making and prevention activity rather than decision-making about individual people.

Data controller(s)

The College of Policing is the data controller responsible for processing your personal data. If you have any questions about this notice or how we handle your data, you can contact the College Data Protection Officer by emailing: Data.Protection@college.police.uk

What data we collect

Depending on the purpose of the analysis, the College may process the following categories of personal data:

Personal data

•    name;
•    date of birth;
•    age;
•    sex;
•    offence date, day and time;
•    crime reference numbers and case identifiers;
•    police force area;
•    offence classification;
•    offence location data;
•    venue address;
•    eastings, northings and other geographical reference data;
•    victim-perpetrator relationship information; and
•    information required to identify repeat offending or offending across force boundaries.

Special category personal data

The information processed may include special category personal data such as:

•    self-defined ethnicity; and
•    information that may reveal sensitive personal information through the nature of recorded offences.

The College may also process criminal offence data where this is necessary for the purposes described within this notice.

How we collect data

The College does not normally collect this information directly from individuals.

Personal data is received from:

•    police forces in England and Wales through crime-recording systems;
•    national policing datasets; and
•    other policing data sources where relevant to the NCVPP Strategic Threat Risk Assessment.

The information is provided to authorised members of the NCVPP analytical team for the purposes outlined in this notice.

Lawful basis for processing

The College processes personal data under Public Task - Article 6(1)(e) UK GDPR

Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest and for the College of Policing's functions in supporting evidence-based policing, identifying policing threats and risks, and supporting improvement across policing.

Special category data

Where special category personal data is processed, the College relies on Article 9(2)(g) UK GDPR, processing necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, together with the relevant conditions contained within Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

How we use your data

We may use your personal data to:

•    undertake strategic analysis relating to VAWG and public protection threats;
•    identify trends, patterns and risks affecting policing and public protection;
•    support delivery of the NCVPP Strategic Threat Risk Assessment;
•    support research and analytical activity aimed at improving prevention and safeguarding outcomes;
•    understand repeat victimisation and offending patterns;
•    understand offending in public spaces and other geographical environments;
•    support responses to recommendations made by national reviews and inquiries; and
•    produce aggregated reports, insight products and recommendations for policing and public protection professionals.

The outputs produced from this work are intended to be aggregated and anonymised wherever possible and are not designed to identify individual victims, witnesses or offenders.

How we store and secure your data

The College implements appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, misuse, loss or disclosure.

These measures include:

•    restricted access to authorised NCVPP personnel only;
•    secure storage within College systems;
•    password protection and access controls;
•    pseudonymisation and removal of direct identifiers where appropriate;
•    secure transfer mechanisms when information is shared for authorised analytical purposes; and
•    secure deletion of information when it is no longer required.

Where specialist geospatial analysis is undertaken by Nottingham Trent University on behalf of the College, information is transferred and stored using secure encrypted mechanisms and may only be used for the purposes authorised by the College. Following completion of the analysis, the underlying data is required to be securely deleted.

How we share your data

The College may share information with:

•    police forces;
•    law enforcement organisations;
•    policing partners;
•    the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC); and
•    Nottingham Trent University.

Reports and analytical products produced using this information are intended to be shared in an aggregated form and will not ordinarily contain personal data.

Where analysis identifies information that is necessary for the prevention or detection of crime, the College may share relevant information with the appropriate police force or law enforcement organisation.

Data retention and disposal

The College retains personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described within this notice and in accordance with the College of Policing Retention Schedule.

The current retention period for pseudonymised information held for the Strategic Threat Risk Assessment is three years, after which the information will be securely deleted unless there is a lawful reason for continued retention.

Data shared with Nottingham Trent University for commissioned analytical purposes will only be retained for as long as necessary to complete the agreed analysis and will then be securely deleted.

Your rights under the UK GDPR

You have certain rights under the GDPR regarding your personal data, which includes the right to access data held about yourself, to ensure it is accurate and to ask it is deleted or no longer processed. You also have the right to complain about the processing of your information if you are not happy about any aspect of the processing. For more information about your rights please see our full privacy notice on the College of Policing website, which can be found on our ‘Legal’ page. You can also contact the College Data Protection Officer by emailing: Data.Protection@college.police.uk

If you have concerns about how we process your data, please contact us so we can address the issue. You can contact the College Data Protection Officer by emailing: Data.Protection@college.police.uk.

If you are dissatisfied with the way your query has been handled, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) via their website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/official-information/ 

Alternatively, you can write to the ICO:

Information Commissioner's Office 

Wycliffe House 

Water Lane 

Wilmslow 

Cheshire 

SK9 5AF 

Phone: 0303 123 1113 

 

VKPP is under-taking a short-term project which aims to explore if there is an under-reporting of Safeguarding Incident Notifications (SINs) within Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE). Under-reporting of a process is difficult to explore without knowing what should have been reported. Using the Complex Organised Child Abuse Database held by the Hydrant Programme, we will be able to identify where a SIN should have been considered by a Safeguarding Partnership. This short-term research project will help us understand decision making around the submission of a SIN, with a particular focus on CSE. A Privacy Notice for this project can be found below.