Police force

Subject Access Request to Devon and Cornwall Police

What Devon and Cornwall Police holds about you, where to send the request, and what to expect back.

GetMySAR is an independent service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of Devon and Cornwall Police. The contact details below are published so you can make a request yourself free of charge.

Where to send your request

Verified 9 August 2026

Postal address: Alliance Data Protection Office Devon and Cornwall Police Force headquarters Middlemoor Exeter Devon EX2 7HQ
Email: dataprotectionalliance@devonandcornwall.police.uk
Contact: Alliance Data Protection Office
Their own SAR form: Open Devon and Cornwall Police’s request form
ICO registration: Z4883316
ID they ask for: Devon and Cornwall Police asks for two forms of identification, one from each of its two lists, in date and not expired. For proof of identity it lists a passport (the pages with photograph and personal details), a driving licence, a birth certificate or an adoption certificate. For proof of address it lists a utility bill other than a mobile telephone bill, a bank statement, a credit card statement, a landline telephone bill, a council tax bill, a driving licence not already used as proof of identity, or a letter from a job centre, the Department of Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration, the Probation Service or a police force, each showing your name and address and dated within the last three months. It says the documents must be scanned or copied in colour and that it does not accept black and white. Where the request is for body worn video, CCTV, a custody photograph or anything containing an image, it asks that your proof of identity is a passport or photo driving licence, and says it will accept student ID, company ID or a national ID card if you hold neither. Applying on somebody else's behalf needs two forms of identification for each of you and their signed third-party permissions form, whose signature must match their identity document. If you apply by post it asks you not to send originals, because they will not be returned.

Source: Devon and Cornwall Police published information. Organisations change these details — tell us if this is out of date.

Three versions of the deadline, and the records ACRO handles instead

Devon and Cornwall Police asks you to apply through its online form, and its privacy notice designates the Alliance Data Protection Office as a route in its own right: "You can request access to the personal data we hold about you using the contact details in this privacy notice." The force also offers a request by telephone or in person, and publishes no number for either. If you are asking for footage or a custody photograph the force tightens the identification it wants, to a passport or photo driving licence. Arrests, cautions and convictions sit on the Police National Computer, and the force sends those applications to ACRO rather than handling them itself. For anything else it says you must apply to the force where it happened, which "might mean that you will have to apply to more than one police force". A criminal record check for a job is a different process again, run by the Disclosure and Barring Service. Three of its pages put the deadline differently. The application page says one month, or three months in complex cases. The rights page says 30 days, with up to two months extra where a request is complex, where you have made several, or where the force is processing the data for something other than law enforcement. The privacy notice says one month unless an exemption applies. Its online form is completed a step at a time, and each step has to be finished within two hours. An employer cannot require you to make one of these requests and hand the result over, and the force says it is an offence for anyone to ask you to if you provide goods, facilities or services.

Making a request to a police force

Made under Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (law enforcement processing), and UK GDPR Article 15 for non-policing purposes

A request to a police force is not a straightforward Article 15 request. Where a force is processing your data as a competent authority for law enforcement purposes, your right of access comes from section 45 of the Data Protection Act 2018 rather than the UK GDPR. The practical effect is similar — you are entitled to a copy of your personal data — but the restrictions available to the force are different and broader.

The same force may hold data about you under both regimes at once. Intelligence entries, custody records and incident logs sit under Part 3; an employment file, a firearms licence application or a complaint you made as a member of the public may sit under the UK GDPR. A single request can cover both, and the force should deal with each under the correct regime.

Police records sit in two places, and which one you want decides who you ask. Arrests, charges, cautions, convictions and firearms certificates are held nationally on the Police National Computer, and requests for that national record are handled centrally rather than by your local force. Everything a particular investigation generated stays with the force that dealt with it: custody records and custody photographs, body-worn video, 999 and 101 recordings, statements you or others gave, interview notes, and reports of incidents you reported. A national request will not return local material and a local request will not return the national record, so if you want both you make two requests. Scottish records sit on a separate national system again.

This is separate from a criminal record certificate, and which body issues one depends on where you are. In England and Wales it is the Disclosure and Barring Service, whose basic check guidance for applicants explains what you get; in Scotland it is Disclosure Scotland, whose Level 1 and Level 2 disclosures replaced basic, standard and enhanced disclosures on 1 April 2025 — mygov.scot sets out the levels; in Northern Ireland it is AccessNI, and nidirect lists the types of AccessNI check. ACRO issues police certificates for emigration and visa applications. None of these is a subject access request, and people routinely make one when they wanted a certificate instead, then lose months finding out.

What people commonly ask for

Incident and crime reports where you are named
Custody records and detention logs
Intelligence entries and markers held against you
Body-worn video and 999 or 101 call recordings
Records of stop and search encounters

Watch out for

Section 45(4) DPA 2018 lets a force restrict access where disclosure would obstruct an inquiry, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime, harm public security, or affect the rights and freedoms of other people. A restriction has to be necessary and proportionate for the specific information at issue — it is not a reason to refuse the request as a whole, and the ICO's guidance on restricting the right of access under Part 3 sets out the test a force is supposed to apply.
Ongoing investigations are the most common ground for withholding. Records may become disclosable once proceedings conclude, and a force can tell you when it is worth asking again.
A force can refuse to confirm or deny that it holds anything at all, where confirming would defeat the purpose of the restriction. That is a recognised answer rather than an administrative failure.
Two exemptions sit alongside those restrictions: legal professional privilege — in Scotland, confidentiality of communications — which covers legal advice the force has taken, and safeguarding national security.
If a force does withhold something, it must normally tell you within a month that it has done so and why, and tell you that you can complain to the force, complain to the ICO, or ask a court to enforce the right. Silence is not one of the options.
Body-worn video and CCTV often contain other identifiable people, so expect redaction or blurring rather than full disclosure. And the right reaches your own personal data only — section 45 entitles you to personal data concerning you — so it is not a route to a recording of someone else, or to footage of an incident you had no part in.
Records about someone who has died are not a subject access request — data protection rights end at death, and unlike health records there is no Access to Health Records Act equivalent for policing. ACRO points people to a Freedom of Information request to the force that dealt with the matter. That is a different law with different tests, and the duty of confidence survives death, so it is the right door rather than a guaranteed answer.
It is a criminal offence under section 184 of the Data Protection Act 2018 for an employer, or for anyone providing goods, facilities or services to the public, to require you to obtain your own police record through a subject access request as a condition. Schedule 18 defines the records this covers by the bodies that hold them, and a record of a conviction or caution obtained from a chief constable is one of them. A job, a tenancy or an insurance policy made conditional on you producing your record this way is the offence, not a formality.

Your rights, whoever you are asking

Deadline. An organisation must respond without undue delay and within one month. It may extend by up to two further months where the request is complex or you have made a number of requests, but it must tell you within the first month that it is doing so, and why.

Cost. There is normally no fee. A reasonable fee may only be charged where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, or where you ask for further copies.

Proving who you are. An organisation may ask you to verify your identity, but only where it has reasonable doubts about who you are, and it should ask for the minimum needed. Where it needs further information to deal with your request, the one-month clock pauses until you provide it.

How hard they have to look. An organisation has to carry out a reasonable and proportionate search — not an exhaustive one. What counts as reasonable depends on the volume of information, the difficulty of locating it, and the size and resources of the organisation. This is a common reason for a partial response, and it is worth being specific about what you want.

If they ignore you. Complain to the organisation first. Since 19 June 2026 every organisation has had a legal duty to give you a clear way to raise a data protection complaint, to acknowledge it within 30 days, to look into it properly and to tell you the outcome. If it does not, or the answer is incomplete, you can then complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Send it to Devon and Cornwall Police

You can do this yourself for free using the details above. If you would rather not handle the wording, the submission and the chasing, GetMySAR prepares, sends and follows up your request for a fixed £20 fee.

Free letter template Have GetMySAR handle it — £20

This page is general information about your right of access under UK data protection law. It is not legal advice. If your situation is complex or contested, consider speaking to a solicitor or contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office.