FOI 482-2025 / Apr 2025 / QR codes
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 482-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 29th April 2025 as follows:
- Please can advise whether your force has received reports / complaints about QR code stickers / adverts promoting drug sales in public places, in the two years to the end of March 2025.
- If so, how many incidents have been reported?
- Please outline the locations, if possible.
- How many arrests have you made in connection with these stickers?
- Please outline the nature of the arrest, and whether any arrests have resulted in a charge.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.
Warwickshire Police are unable to confirm whether or not any information is held relevant to your request.
Section 12(2) states: “…Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.”
There is no specific identifier within the Command and Control System to isolate reports / complaints about QR code stickers / adverts promoting drug sales in public places. Keyword searches are not carried out routinely as they are not reliable, they will only bring back records where the chosen keyword(s) is present within the free text of the log of an incident. Therefore, in the event that the circumstances are relevant, but where the exact keyword/s has not been used to describe the situation, then these would not be picked up within a search. Therefore it would be necessary to review thousands of incidents on an individual basis to determine an accurate response regarding reports/complaints.
Further, if circumstances falling within the remit of the request are disclosed during the course of an investigation of a crime, rather than being reported through the Command and Control System, then in order to ascertain whether any such information is held, and then to ensure that all information is captured, it would also be necessary to review crimes including, but not necessarily limited to, all drug offences recorded during the period.
As you will appreciate, such searches of the Command and Control System / Crime Recording System would take an inordinate amount of time and; therefore, the cost of complying with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) would be above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
In accordance s12(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance and, where possible, suggest ways in which you may revise your request. However, due to the volume of records involved I am unable to suggest a way to revise your request into one that could be dealt with within the fees limit as it stands.
However, although the limitations of a keyword search have been set out above, should you wish to resubmit a request, limiting your request to incident logs recorded within the Command and Control System for the period, and asking for specific terms to be searched within the text, for example ‘QR code sticker’ and ‘drug’ and/or ‘poster’ and ‘drug’, then this could be undertaken. However, the specific search terms would need to be provided and it must be understood that any information returned could not be considered statistically accurate and/or definitive and caution would need to be taken when using such data for any further statistical, analytical or evaluative purposes.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB