Subject Access Request to Staffordshire Police

Send it to the Right of Access team, not to the Data Protection Officer and not to the Information Access Team's general mailbox. Staffordshire Police runs three data protection mailboxes and only the one above takes subject access requests. Its privacy notice gives spdpo@staffordshire.police.uk for questions about how it handles your data and for restricting or objecting to processing, and iat@staffordshire.police.uk for correcting or deleting your data and for complaining about a response you have already had. Neither is for making the request, and the notice's own right of access section names no address at all — the address and mailbox above come from the force's published right of access policy and its application form. You do not have to use the form. The force's policy says in terms that it has one it will provide if you ask, but that "it is not a requirement of the Act to complete a form", so a letter or an email is enough. Our free letter template will draft one, and a request is free unless the force decides it is clearly unfounded or excessive. The force lists "Phone 101" as one of six ways to make a request. There is no number above because 101 is the national non-emergency line used by every force in England and Wales rather than a Staffordshire subject access line, and the force names no team or extension to ask for. If you do call it, say you are making a right of access request and ask for the Information Access Team. Body-worn video is the fact most likely to decide whether your request finds anything, and the force is unusually explicit about it. Its body-worn video policy says recordings not marked as evidential are automatically deleted by the system after 31 days, that footage can be marked evidential at any time within that window, and — in its own words — that "subject access will be available until such time as the film is deleted". So the recording and your right to it end together. The force also publishes a full retention schedule, which its privacy notice does not link to, and it has confirmed in a freedom of information response that it has not operated live facial recognition. The force's own pages give the deadline three different ways: one calendar month in the privacy notice and in its right of access policy, "one month, or three months in complex cases" on the page in front of the form, and "usually within 30 days" plus up to two months extra on its information rights page. Thirty days is not a calendar month, and the legal position is one month, extendable by two more. If a request is only for your national criminal record, or only for a police certificate for a visa or emigration, the force says not to use this route at all — that is ACRO. A check an employer has asked for is a DBS check, and requiring you to make a subject access request instead is an offence. A request to Staffordshire returns what this force holds locally: incident reports, custody records, body-worn video, 999 and 101 recordings. If you are unhappy with the answer you get, the force gives you two months from the date you received it to complain, and asks you to write to the Information Access Team at the same headquarters. 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.