Subject Access Request to Humberside Police

Humberside Police covers both banks of the Humber — Hull, the East Riding, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. It is a different force from Lincolnshire Police, which covers the rest of the county, so if what happened to you was south of the estuary check which area you were in before you apply. The force asks you to make the request through its online form and that is the route it actually supports. It is free, and the telephone number above is genuinely for information rights rather than a general enquiry line — the force gives it in its privacy notice's data protection contact block and again on its information rights pages. Note it is also the number for freedom of information complaints, so say which you are calling about. The postal address above needs one caveat. The force names post as a way of contacting its Data Protection Officer and asks you not to send original documents if you apply that way, but it never publishes a postal address for subject access anywhere. The address above is the one it publishes for its Information Governance Unit, which is the unit its own policies say access requests are forwarded to — but it appears on the force's freedom of information appeals page rather than on any subject access page. If you write, address it to the Information Governance Unit and say clearly that you are making a subject access request. The online form avoids the ambiguity. The force publishes retention periods, but not for the two things people usually want. Its records management policy sets out the national review groups with real figures — six, seven and ten years for different categories — while body-worn video and CCTV carry no published window at all. If your request is about footage, ask quickly rather than assuming there is a period to rely on. Its own pages give the deadline as one month, or three months for complex requests. Thirty days is not a calendar month, and the legal position is one month, extendable by two more. Your national criminal record and a police certificate for a visa come from ACRO rather than from this force, and a check an employer has asked for is a DBS check — requiring you to make a subject access request instead is an offence. A request to Humberside returns what it holds locally: incident reports, custody records, body-worn video, 999 and 101 recordings. If you would rather write than use the form, our free letter template will draft the letter. Other forces are listed on the police subject access request page.

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.

• 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

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.