Harrassment – social media (3347-20)
Request
For all crimes that fall under the home office offence sub group of “stalking and harassment” between January 2014 and January 2020 (inclusive of both of those months), please provide the modus operandi report for crimes including the keywords “Tinder”, “Hinge”, “Grindr” and “Bumble”, respectively. Please also provide the dates that each of these incidents took place.
For all crimes that fall under the home office offence sub group of “stalking and harassment” between January 2014 and January 2020 (inclusive of both of those months), please provide the modus operandi report for crimes including the keywords “Facebook”, “Twitter”, “Instagram”, “Snapchat”, “Whatsapp” and “TikTok”, respectively. Please also provide the dates that each of these incidents took place.
Response
Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).
Although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see attached file 3347_20 attachment). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fees regulations for the remainder of the request.
The table of data in 3347_20 attachment shows the number of crimes recorded from January 2014 to January 2020. This is a complete list of crimes which has a result of the social media references in the modus operandi:
“Facebook”, “Twitter”, “Instagram”, “Snapchat”, “Whatsapp” and “TikTok”
“Tinder”, “Hinge”, “Grindr” and “Bumble”
In order to obtain a list of dates of offences would result in an examination of each individual request.
In relation to the modus operandi notes for the crimes, we can confirm that some relevant information is held by West Midlands Police. However, I am afraid that I am not required to release all of the information requested.