Dorset Police gathers and holds personal information which it
uses for a policing purpose. The policing purpose includes: -
a) Protecting life and property;
b) Preserving order;
c) Preventing the commission of offences;
d) Bringing offenders to justice;
e) Any duty or responsibility of the police arising from common or
statute law.
These five policing purposes provide the legal basis for
collecting, recording, evaluating, sharing and retaining police
information.
Dorset Police will hold information relating to a range of
individuals including victims, witnesses, complainants, suspects
and offenders, in connection with this policing purpose as well as
details of others who work for or with Dorset Police.
All personal information is held and processed in accordance with
the Data Protection Act 1998. Anyone working for or with Dorset
Police may only use information in accordance with their policing
duties.
Information held by Dorset Police may be shared with other
organisations where this is necessary for a policing purpose, for
example information is shared:
- With Criminal Justice Systems as part of the pre-charge and
post-charge processes e.g. prosecuting someone through the
Court.
- When working with partner agencies to reduce crime and
disorder, and anti social behaviour as required by the Crime and
Disorder Act 1998.
- With the Criminal Records Bureau which provides information to
organisations in order to enable them to make safer recruitment
decisions by identifying potential candidates who may be unsuitable
to work with children or other vulnerable members of society.
- With other Professional and Regulatory Bodies.
Information is shared where specifically required to do so by
statute or by order of the court.
Dorset Police will also share information with partner agencies
when the information is required to enable them to carry out their
statutory responsibilities or where it is necessary to prevent harm
to an individual or others.
Any disclosure of personal information is carefully considered
in accordance with legislation, policy and/or information sharing
agreements.
We may use your personal information to analyse our performance
and effectiveness. It might be necessary for us, or third parties
we deem appropriate and fully approved, to contact you and ask you
to assist us in this analysis. This is in order that we gather
information about the service we are providing to the public and
use this to identify ways of improving that service wherever we
can. If you would like to opt out of these surveys in advance,
please follow this link for more information on how
you can do this >
You have a right to see information held about you and can
request access to your own information in accordance with the
Subject Access provisions of Section 7, Data Protection Act 1998.
Follow this link to find out more information
about the Subject Access provisions and to download the Subject
Access Application Form >