Police force
Subject Access Request to West Mercia Police
What West Mercia 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 West Mercia Police. The contact details below are published so you can make a request yourself free of charge.
Where to send your request
Verified 30 August 2026- Postal address
- Information Compliance Unit West Mercia Police PO Box 55 Hindlip Worcester WR3 8SP
- Their own SAR form
- Open West Mercia Police’s request form
- ICO registration
- Z4894230
- ID they ask for
- West Mercia Police asks for two forms of identification and says they should be in date, valid and not expired, one from each of its two lists. 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 letter from a job centre or from the Department for 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, or a driving licence if you did not use it as proof of identity — each showing your name and address and dated within the last three months. Documents must be scanned or copied in colour, because the force says it does not accept black and white. Where a request covers body-worn video, CCTV, a custody photograph or anything else containing an image, it asks that proof of identity is a passport or photo driving licence, and will accept student ID, company ID or a national ID card if you hold neither. If you apply by post it asks you not to send originals, because they will not be returned. A request on someone else's behalf needs their signed third-party consent form, with a signature matching their identity document, and two documents for each of you. The force warns that it is an offence to pretend to be someone else when filling in the form, and its online form gives you two hours to complete each step.
Source: West Mercia Police published information. Organisations change these details — tell us if this is out of date.
Specific to West Mercia Police
West Mercia Police covers Herefordshire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, and Worcestershire — one force for four counties, with no separate Hereford, Shrewsbury, Telford or Worcester force. It is a different organisation from Warwickshire Police; the two ran a formal alliance until 2019 and it no longer covers information rights, so a request about something that happened in Warwickshire goes to that force and has its own separate route. The force asks you to make the request through its online form and says that is its preferred method, but unusually it also prints the postal address and email address above inside the right of access itself, as the alternative — so writing is a route the force names rather than one you have to infer. It is free, and our free letter template will draft the letter. Address it to the Information Compliance Unit, not to the Data Protection Officer. The force uses the same PO Box and the same email address for both, but its notice attaches the Information Compliance Unit to making a request and the Data Protection Officer, at "Audit, Risk and Compliance", to complaints about how your information has been handled. A third team, the Traffic Process Unit, shares the same box for penalty notices. The force says a request can be made by telephone and then publishes no number for one. The two numbers on its form, 01905 331565 and 01905 331545, are for advice on completing the application, and the form says in terms that the force "will be unable to provide you with information contained on police systems over the telephone or by email prior to completion of your request". So a call can help you fill the form in; it will not get you your data. Body-worn video does not last long. The force says recordings not categorised as required for evidence at court or in other legal proceedings are automatically deleted within 31 days. Automatic number plate recognition data is kept for a year. If your incident was on a motorway or major A road the camera may not be the force's at all: National Highways keeps its footage for only seven days, and the force asks you to request that within five. The force's own pages give the deadline two different ways. Its privacy notice and the page in front of the form both say one month, or three months for complex requests; its information rights page says "We usually respond within 30 days. But it can take up to two months extra." Thirty days is not a calendar month, and the legal position is one month, extendable by two more. The advice tool routes four of its five "for myself" answers somewhere that is not a subject access request: a visa or emigration to an ACRO police certificate, an employer's check to the Disclosure and Barring Service, a family court case to the force's Family Court Unit, and legal aid to GOV.UK. Only "other personal reasons" reaches the form. You never have to justify a request for your own data, so that is the branch to take if none of the others fits. Requiring you to use subject access for an employment check is an offence. A collision report is a separate, chargeable route and not a subject access request, and the force publishes a dated price list for it: £130.70 for a collision report in 2026, with a crime report at £118.70, an incident or call log at £48.20 and a custody record at £23.90. A subject access request returns what the force holds about you free of charge. Individuals can use the collision route only if they are representing themselves in civil proceedings; otherwise it is for solicitors and insurers. Fingerprints for use abroad are chargeable too, and also not a subject access request. Other forces are listed on the police subject access request page.
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 West Mercia 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.
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.