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PRIVACY
Economic Development

West Midlands Police seizes private data 90 times a day

New report from campaign group Big Brother Watch shines a light on how much personal communication is accessed by police forces across the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ

seizes the public's private communications data 90 times every day, according to a new report.

According to statistics released under the Freedom of Information Act, the force has made 99,444 requests to access the public's communications data over the past three years.

This works out at 90.8 requests every day and is the second highest number for any police force in the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ.

Of these requests, only 1,349 were turned down, meaning that in 98.6 per cent of cases West Midlands Police has been able to access private information.

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, police forces can apply to access information about individuals and their use of the internet and mobile phone.

The act does not permit the police to access the content of people's communications but does allow them to collect data such as who a person is calling, texting or emailing, their location based on a phone's GPS or an IP address and the websites someone visits.

Under the current workings of the legislation, police forces do not need to seek the approval of any outside body before accessing this information - approval can be granted internally.

Across the whole of the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ, police submitted 733,237 requests for communications data between 2012 and 2014 and, of these, 679,073 were approved.