Air BNB and Tik Tok Crimes (431A/21)
Request
1) In the 2020 calendar year how many crimes were logged by your force where Airbnb was recorded as being an element in the offence. [Note: I would hope that this could be achieved by a computer search on the MO of crimes for the word/s ‘airbnb’, ‘air bnb’, ‘air-bnb’ and ‘air bandb’.
2) Please provide me with a table showing a breakdown of the crimes from Question 1 that are ‘linked’ to Airbnb by its mention in the MO.
3) Taking the start date of May 2020 please provide me with copies of the first 10 MOs that mention Airbnb. [Note: To avoid falling into an exemption I am content for the names, ages, geography or any other detail to be redacted to allow for the disclosure of the incident and how it relates to Airbnb.]
4) Could you please go through the same process in answering Question 1, 2 and 3 but instead of Airbnb please carry out the process in relation to the app/website Tik Tok.
Response
We can confirm that some relevant information is held by West Midlands Police. However, while the majority of the information is attached to this email I am not required to release all of the information requested. Please find attached the information and note the redactions are shown as white spaces.
REASONS FOR DECISION
The redacted information is exempt by virtue of the following exemptions:
Section 30(1) – Investigations
Section 40(2) – Personal Information
These exemptions and explanatory notes are shown here:
In line with the above, I am required to complete a Prejudice Test/Public Interest Test (PIT) on disclosure. Please find this PIT attached (431A_PIT).
Section 40(2) allows for personal data to be withheld where release would breach the third party’s data protection rights. It would be unfair to release this information where any person could be identified from the data and in this case the right to privacy outweighs any public interest in release.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.