Revenge Porn – Onlyfans (93A/21)
Request
How many complaints have been made to the force involving OnlyFans, the content subscription service, from January 1st 2016 until and including 31st December 2020. Please provide a breakdown of complaints by month and year, type of crime (e.g. child sexual exploitation, revenge porn, sextortion etc.) and age of alleged victim (aged 18 or over, or under the age of 18).
Response
We can confirm that some relevant information is held by West Midlands Police. However, we are withholding that information since it is exempt by virtue of the following exemptions
Section 40 (2): Personal Data
These exemptions and explanatory notes are shown here:
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.
Please be advised that any information released as a result of a Freedom of Information request, in effect, is being released into the public domain. Therefore, it could subsequently be published or would have to be made available to any member of the public if it were requested.
We can tell you that during the period 1st Jan 2016 to 31st Dec 2020 there were three reported crimes which contained the keyword search “only fans”. Given the low figure to release the month / year / age of victim details of the crime may lead to them being identified, for this reason this information is withheld as details above. I can tell you that the three recorded offences were:
2 x Harassment
1 x Send communication conveying threatening message
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