Subject Access Request to Suffolk Constabulary

Suffolk Constabulary and Norfolk Constabulary share one data protection team, and the force publishes two different email addresses for it. The one above is the address its own data protection policy names for a subject access request: that policy, published in December 2024, says requests to exercise the right of access must be directed to the Data Protection Teams at DataProtection@suffolk.police.uk or the Norfolk equivalent. The force's privacy notice, which is older, gives compliance@suffolk.police.uk in its contact block instead, and the same policy scopes that address to rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and automated decisions, which is every right except access and portability. A request sent to either will probably reach the same team, but the address above is the one the force's own policy asks for. The force asks you to make the request through its online form, and that is the route it supports first. It is free. The postal address above is the one its privacy notice designates for exercising your rights, and our free letter template will draft the letter if you would rather write. The force also lists telephone and in person as ways to make a request and publishes no number for either. Its own pages and policies give the deadline five different ways. The request page says one month, or three months in complex cases. The information rights page says usually 30 days, with up to two months extra. The privacy notice and the data protection policy both say one month from receipt. One calendar month is the statutory period, extendable by up to two further months, and 30 days is not a calendar month. The fifth is on the document that governs exactly the requests the identification rules above are about, and it is wrong. The force's CCTV policy says a subject access request will be processed within 40 days, and that the force will respond within 40 days of receiving the required information and a fee. Forty days and a fee were the position under the Data Protection Act 1998, which was replaced in 2018. A subject access request is free and the period is one calendar month. If you are asking for CCTV or body-worn video and you are quoted 40 days or asked to pay, that is the wrong document. Timing decides whether some material still exists. Non-evidential body-worn video is deleted after 31 days through the digital asset system the force stores it in, and non-evidential footage of a stop and search is kept for three months. CCTV in the force's own premises is kept for 31 days, or 60 days in a Police Investigation Centre, and footage recorded by its live facial recognition technology goes within 31 days. Automatic number plate recognition data is stored for one year. Those figures cover non-evidential material: the force says body-worn video retention is set by two further policies, and it publishes neither of them, so if your request is about footage that was kept as evidence there is no published window to rely on. Ask early either way. 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. Disclosure for family court proceedings is a different route, and whether it costs anything depends on which kind of proceedings you are in. The force says there is no charge in public law proceedings. In private law proceedings you need a court order and you pay before sending it, on a scale set out in the form the force asks you to use, and the terms include a minimum charge even where the force turns out to hold nothing within the scope of your request. A subject access request for your own data is free and needs no court order. Norfolk Constabulary is the other half of the shared data protection team and its page carries the same distinction between the two mailboxes. Other forces are listed on the police records hub.

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.