Computer Based Evidence

1. How many cases were investigated for the year 2010 that were primarily to do with computer based evidence (i.e. possession of indecent images of children, internet related fraud, computer misuse act violations etc.)?

2. How many cases were investigated in the year 2010, were the computer based evidence was encrypted?

3. How many requests have been served by the constabulary under RIPA Part III S.49 – Notice Requiring Disclosure of Encryption Keys?

4. How many cases involving computer based evidence during the year 2010, were dropped by the constabulary due to deniably encrypted devices?

In accordance with section 1(1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

Question 1: 198 cases

Questions 2 & 3: This information is not held in an easily retrievable format. To recover this information would require the manual examination of all relevant files, which at the very least would include the 198 cases referred to in question 1. This would take your request over the FOI cost limits as it is estimated to take over 30 hours at the very least. Rather than refuse the whole of your request we have provided the figure for question 1. We can say encryption does not appear to be problematic or something which would overly hinder our work - however anecdotally there have been 2 or 3 that have 'involved' some form of encryption. Like wise 2 or 3 applications have been under RIPA.

Question 4: No cases were dropped due to deniable encryption devices

In addition to the above the Cheshire Constabulary can neither confirm nor deny that it holds any other information relative to your request. To give a statement of the reasons why neither confirming nor denying is appropriate in this case would itself involve disclosure of exempt information, therefore under section 17(4), no explanation can be given. To the extent that section 23 applies, the Cheshire Constabulary has determined that in all the circumstances of the case the public interest in maintaining the exclusion of the duty to neither confirm nor deny outweighs the public interest in confirming whether or not the information is held.