Relates to: CCTV footage at London Underground stations CCTV footage outside the stations I wish to know how many times in 2017-18 TFL have been unable to meet requests for disclosure of CCTV footage / images, as a result of the footage being over-written / deleted after being retained for 14 days? And how can this possibly be enough time to make a request for disclosure and for the request to be processed? I was recently informed it takes '7 - 10 working days' to process applications to 'access your data'. Is this still correct?

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Our ref: FOI-0827-1920/GH

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 21 June 2019 asking for information about London Underground CCTV.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you require.

During the financial year 2017-18 there were 153 Subject Access Requests made for disclosure. Of those six were overwritten (five were related to stations and one related to a station car park).

There are a number of differences in the requests being made: For instance, footage of car park CCTV is retained for 30 days, as opposed to station CCTV which typically is stored for 14 days.

Four of the station requests had been overwritten after the 14 days and before we had received any request. These requests covered incidents that occurred between 16 and 34 days before the personal data was requested.  

Regrettably on two occasions footage was overwritten after the request was received. On one occasion the request was received on day 13 which left insufficient time to obtain a download. The other request was received on day 10, and due to policing priorities that had to take precedence, this data was not downloaded before it was overwritten. Whilst we do try to provide the footage held at the time the request was made, the Data Protection legislation does not prohibit the scheduled deletion of information.

CCTV is recorded for the purposes described in our privacy notice https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/privacy-and-cookies/cctv#on-this-page-1 Fourteen days has been determined to be an appropriate time period to retain London Underground footage, as this provides sufficient time for TfL to determine whether an incident has occurred that requires footage to be extracted for the purposes described in our privacy notice. We do state that we retain station CCTV for 14 days.

                                                                                                                                                                                          

TfL recognises that the public have a right to access their personal data under the GDPR and we accept requests for CCTV electronically. For London Underground there is a dedicated email address so that requests can be checked daily. Postal requests are also checked daily. On the day that our CCTV data Manager receives a request, he will usually order the CCTV the same day. However, the CCTV has to be checked and in many cases redacted before it can be disclosed, and this may take a few days after the initial download of the footage.

To help the public make a Subject Access request for CCTV footage we have made forms available on our website ( https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/privacy-and-cookies/access-your-data )

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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