FOI 695-2025 / Jul 2025 / Video footage
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 695-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 9th July 2025 as follows:
- Have you set up Operation Snap – or a similar scheme - in your constabulary, where people can send you video footage of drivers committing alleged misdemeanours?
- How many items of footage have been submitted and received by your constabulary between January 2022 and May 2025? Please provide a monthly breakdown if available. If a monthly breakdown is not available, could you provide it by calendar or financial year? Please note my preference, if you cannot provide monthly figures, would be calendar years for 2022, 2023 and 2024.
- In each of the last three calendar years how did these cases conclude? Please provide a breakdown of the outcomes, including (a) Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) issued, (b) court prosecutions, (c) warnings letters, (d) education/retraining courses, (e) no further action etc.
- In each of the last three calendar years please provide a breakdown of the types of offences identified via these submissions, with total figures for each of the following categories (a) driving without due care and attention/driving without reasonable consideration, (b) contravening a red light, (c) using a mobile phone whilst driving, (d) stopping a vehicle on a pelican/pedestrian crossing (e) failing to wear a seatbelt.
- If recorded, please specify the type of individuals or groups submitting footage (e.g. private motorists, cyclists, taxi drivers, bus drivers, fleet companies, etc.
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: I can confirm that Warwickshire Police does operate ‘Operation Snap’; however, not all of the information requested is available in a readily retrievable format. At Q3, where you have asked for how the cases concluded, Op Snap data only records outcomes determined from the initial triage, and consists of whether this resulted in 'NFA', 'Warning Letter' or 'passed to Traffic Processing Unit for further consideration'. This is because, where the initial triage does not result in a NFA decision or a warning letter, and further review is required to decide if a Notice of Intended Prosecution or other legal action is required, then the case is directed to the Traffic Processing Unit. From that point on, the dash cam submissions are not processed separately from other cases and so it is not possible to conduct electronic searches for the outcomes for any dash cam submissions passed onto the Traffic Processing Unit. In order to ascertain such information it would be necessary to manually review each and every case that the TPU have processed to determine if it originated from a dash cam submission. Due to the amount of records this would involve, such searches would take an inordinate amount of time and would greatly exceed the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e., the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. For Police forces in the UK, the ‘appropriate limit’ is considered to be up to 18 hours of work on one request.
In accordance with Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this part of the request, and, if one part of a request exceeds the fees limit, then Section 12 of the Act applies to the whole request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to refining your request. However, due to the extent of the searches required, I am unable to suggest a way to revise this element of your request into one which could be searched within the fees limit for this element of your request. However, I can advise that it would be possible to conduct searches in relation to Q2 (Q1 already advised) and were you to revise Q3 to a breakdown of triaged outcomes then it would be possible to conduct searches for this information within the fees limit.
Further, with regard to Q4, information is not recorded to this level. Information is recorded as Careless (includes dangerous and close pass), Phone, Red ATS, RTC and Other but it may be possible to conduct searches under those categories.
With regard to Q5, this information is not recorded. It is possible to provide witness mode of transport broken down into Cycles, Horses, Cars, Motorcycles, HGV, Bus, Van, Tractor, Pedestrian, E-bike or E-scooter.
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